Why are Python's 'private' methods not actually private?

Question

Python gives us the ability to create \'private\' methods and variables within a class by prepending double underscores to the name, like this: __myPrivateMethod()

Answer 1

When I first came from Java to Python I hated this. It scared me to death.

Today it might just be the one thing I love most about Python.

I love being on a platform, where people trust each other and don't feel like they need to build impenetrable walls around their code. In strongly encapsulated languages, if an API has a bug, and you have figured out what goes wrong, you may still be unable to work around it because the needed method is private. In Python the attitude is: "sure". If you think you understand the situation, perhaps you have even read it, then all we can say is "good luck!".

Remember, encapsulation is not even weakly related to "security", or keeping the kids off the lawn. It is just another pattern that should be used to make a code base easier to understand.