Do you believe that encapsulation implies a strict separation between public contracts and internal implementations related to data management?

Yes, encapsulation implies a clear separation between a class's public interface and its internal implementation. This means that external components interact with the object only through defined methods and properties (public contracts), without access to internal data and logic. Such an approach ensures data protection, simplifies maintenance and development of the code, and reduces the likelihood of errors during changes.

In Python, encapsulation is implemented through naming conventions (for example, one or two underscores before the name), as the language does not have strict privacy, but the concept is preserved:

class Example:
    def __init__(self):
        self.public_data = 42
        self._protected_data = 'not for external use'
        self.__private_data = [1, 2, 3]

    def get_private_data(self):
        return self.__private_data

Here, public_data is accessible to everyone, _protected_data is for internal use and inheritance, and __private_data is maximally hidden from external access.