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

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Mon Jun 27 16:32:59 CEST 2011

On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 12:08 AM, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:

While I agree that using 'attribute' when only methods are being discussed would most likely be confusing, and that it can be tricky to clearly word things when both are being discussed, the existence in the language of getattr, setattr, and related methods argues against using the term 'members'.

Yep, to me "attribute" just means "something that can be accessed using attribute notation". What it actually is is completely up for grabs at that point.

'data attributes' can so easily become something else in Python...it seems to me that the only real difference between 'data attributes' and 'method attributes' in Python is that the latter can be called and the former can't.  But even that is not an accurate distinction, since a 'data attribute' could, in fact, return a callable.

I guess what I'm saying is that I am more comfortable calling them all attributes than calling them all members.  The term 'members' isn't used anywhere in the language itself, as far as I can recall, whereas getattr and setattr are evidence that the language considers them all attributes.  I think we do the documentation readers a disservice by obscuring that fact by using other terminology.

It's worse than that - the specific meaning of "members" in the context of Python's history specifically excludes methods.

The superset is "attributes" - as noted, the names of the builtins and magic methods make that terminology quite explicit.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia

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