[Python-Dev] Issue10403 - using 'attributes' instead of members in documentation (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Mon Jun 27 11:42:54 CEST 2011

On 27/06/2011 09:24, Antoine Pitrou wrote:

Le Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:32:32 +1000, Nick Coghlan<ncoghlan at gmail.com> a écrit :

On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 7:52 AM, Terry Reedy<tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

or the 'attribute' substitution everywhere makes sense? No.

My strong history-based opinions ;-). +1 to what Terry said. "Members" is a historical relic that is best replaced by "attributes" or "data attributes" if we want to explicitly exclude methods for some reason. "Methods" is a subset of attributes that explicitly excludes data attributes. While I know it is technically right, I find it a bit strange to refer to methods as "attributes". We're describing an API, not the inner working of the object model. Also, people just discovering Python will probably be a bit surprised if we start refer to methods as "attributes". FWIW, I tend to understand "members" as "methods + attributes", which makes it a nice term to use for that purpose.

That is my understanding / use of the terms as well.

Michael

Regards

Antoine.

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