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

R. David Murray rdmurray at bitdance.com
Mon Jun 27 18:56:32 CEST 2011

On Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:27:12 +0100, Michael Foord <fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/2011 15:08, R. David Murray wrote: > '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.

Well perhaps, but where does the language draw the distinction between attributes and "data attributes" as you all them (a term entirely new to

It doesn't, that's the point. You'll note I put "data attributes" in quotes :)

me)? Only in the descriptor protocol and that term isn't used there (data-descriptors and non data-descriptors is terminology used in the documentation there).

If you're saying that data attributes isn't clear either (I couldn't quite tell from your email) then how do we draw a distinction. We could talk about instance attributes, non-descriptor class attributes and descriptors, but that terminology requires a reasonably advanced understanding of the Python data model.

That's why I said it could be difficult to find good wording when discussing both methods and "other things". Most people have a pretty clear idea of what methods are, but the non-method stuff in Python does not have any simple description that is also accurate. Maybe 'non-method attribute' is as close as we can get?

I don't think that "all members, made up of attributes plus methods" is hard to understand. That's a great benefit. The fact that you can technically treat methods as attributes too is a minor detail.

Well, I would find that very hard to understand, since methods are attributes, and as Nick said that is fundamental to the language, not a minor detail.

-- R. David Murray http://www.bitdance.com

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