As your Python codebase grows, maintaining it can become a daunting task. Without proper organization and structure, your code can quickly devolve into a tangled mess of interdependencies, making it difficult to understand, modify, or extend. This is where encapsulation comes into play — a fundamental principle of object-oriented programming (OOP) that can help you write cleaner, more maintainable code.
Encapsulation is the practice of bundling data and the methods that operate on that data within a single unit, typically a class. By doing so, you create a well-defined interface for interacting with the class, while hiding the internal implementation details from the outside world.
This not only promotes code organization and modularity but also enhances code reusability and maintainability.
Let’s dive into an example to illustrate the power of encapsulation in Python:
class BankAccount:
def __init__(self, owner, balance):
self._owner = owner
self._balance = balance
def deposit(self, amount):
if amount <= 0:
print("Invalid deposit…