Here is an excerpt of my class:
Person:
__init__(self, first_name):
self.first_name = first_name
Should I create a function that allows me to get or change the value of the instance variable like this:
def set_first_name(self, first_name):
self.first_name = first_name
Or is it okay to just use something like person1.first_name = ...?
Do whatever you want (it's "ok"), a similar question was asked recently too in which I said that creating functions for such purposes will have a minimal overhead so unless you're using a function to externally set properties thousands of times, it won't matter.
It's obvious that without optimizations indexing and setting properties directly should be quicker (just quicker considering a nearly infinitesimal difference). Readability should be your biggest concern if you're considering dedicating a function to altering properties anyway.
