Should internal class methods return values or just modify instance variables?

Returning a value is preferable as it allows you to keep all the attribute modifying in one place (__init__). Also, this makes it easier to extend the code later; suppose you want to override _build_query in a subclass, then the overriding method can just return a value, without needing to know which attribute to set. Here’s an example:

class QueryHelper(object):
    def __init__(self, param, text):
        self._param = param
        self._query = self._build_query(text)

    def _build_query(self, text):
        return text + " and ham!"

class RefinedQueryHelper(QueryHelper):
    def _build_query(self, text):
        # no need to know how the query object is going to be used
        q = super(RefinedQueryHelper, self)._build_query()
        return q.replace("ham", "spam")

vs. the “setter version”:

class QueryHelper(object):
    def __init__(self, param, text):
        self._param = param
        self._build_query(text)

    def _build_query(self, text):
        self._query = text + " and ham!"

class RefinedQueryHelper(QueryHelper):
    def _build_query(self, text):
        # what if we want to store the query in __query instead?
        # then we need to modify two classes...
        super(RefinedQueryHelper, self)._build_query()
        self._query = self._query.replace("ham", "spam")

If you do choose to set an attribute, you might want to call the method _set_query for clarity.