Currently the way to access the properties of pygtk objects is to either use the get_property()/set_property() methods or the appropriate accessor methods. It would be nice if pygtk could support Python properties as introduced in Python 2.2. This way a more "natural" access of properties is possible. For example with gtk.SpinButton, properties could be implemented like this:

  class SpinButton(gtk.Entry):
      ...

      # Since SpinButton does not expose get_climb_rate() and set_climb_rate() methods,
      # define them as private:

      def __get_climb_rate(self):
          return self.adjustment.climb_rate

      def __set_climb_rate(self, climb_rate):
          self.adjustment.climb_rate = climb_rate

      ...

      # Properties

      adjustment = property(get_adjustment, set_adjustment, None, "Docstring ...")
      climb_rate = property(__get_climb_rate, __set_climb_rate, None, "Docstring ...")
      digits = property(get_digits, set_digits, None, "Docstring ...")
      ...

Long term, get_property()/set_property() as well as the getter/setter methods could be deprecated.