In Python, users may dynamically add data attributes of their own to an instance object using attribute access.

>>> class Dog(object):
...     pass
>>> dog = Dog()
>>> vars(dog)
{}
>>> superdog = Dog()
>>> vars(superdog)
{}
>>> dog.legs="I can run."
>>> superdog.wings="I can fly."
>>> vars(dog)
{'legs': 'I can run.'}
>>> vars(superdog)
{'wings': 'I can fly.'}

In pandas, index and column are closely related to the data structure, you may access an index on a Series, column on a DataFrame as an attribute.

>>> import pandas as pd
>>> import numpy as np
>>> data = np.random.randint(low=0, high=10, size=(2,2))
>>> df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=['a', 'b'])
>>> df
   a  b
0  7  6
1  5  8
>>> vars(df)
{'_is_copy': None, 
 '_data': BlockManager
    Items: Index(['a', 'b'], dtype="object")
    Axis 1: RangeIndex(start=0, stop=2, step=1)
    IntBlock: slice(0, 2, 1), 2 x 2, dtype: int64,
 '_item_cache': {}}

But, pandas attribute access is mainly a convinience for reading from and modifying an existing element of a Series or column of a DataFrame.

>>> df.a
0    7
1    5
Name: a, dtype: int64
>>> df.b = [1, 1]
>>> df
   a  b
0  7  1
1  5  1

And, the convinience is a tradeoff for full functionality. E.g. you can create a DataFrame object with column names ['space bar', '1', 'loc', 'min', 'index'], but you can’t access them as an attribute, because they are either not a valid Python identifier 1, space bar or conflicts with an existing method name.

>>> data = np.random.randint(0, 10, size=(2, 5))
>>> df_special_col_names = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=['space bar', '1', 'loc', 'min', 'index'])
>>> df_special_col_names
   space bar  1  loc  min  index
0          4  4    4    8      9
1          3  0    1    2      3

In these cases, the .loc, .iloc and [] indexing is the defined way to fullly access/operate index and columns of Series and DataFrame objects.

>>> df_special_col_names['space bar']
0    4
1    3
Name: space bar, dtype: int64
>>> df_special_col_names.loc[:, 'min']
0    8
1    2
Name: min, dtype: int64
>>> df_special_col_names.iloc[:, 1]
0    4
1    0
Name: 1, dtype: int64

Another important difference is when tyring to create a new column for DataFrame. As you can see, df.c = df.a + df.b just created an new attribute along side to the core data structure, so starting from version 0.21.0 and later, this behavior will raise a UserWarning (silent no more).

>>> df
   a  b
0  7  1
1  5  1
>>> df.c = df.a + df.b
__main__:1: UserWarning: Pandas doesn't allow columns to be created via a new attribute name - see https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/indexing.html#attribute-access
>>> df['d'] = df.a + df.b
>>> df
   a  b  d
0  7  1  8
1  5  1  6
>>> df.c
0    8
1    6
dtype: int64
>>> vars(df)
{'_is_copy': None, 
 '_data': 
    BlockManager
    Items: Index(['a', 'b', 'd'], dtype="object")
    Axis 1: RangeIndex(start=0, stop=2, step=1)
    IntBlock: slice(0, 2, 1), 2 x 2, dtype: int64
    IntBlock: slice(2, 3, 1), 1 x 2, dtype: int64, 
 '_item_cache': {},
 'c': 0    8
      1    6
      dtype: int64}

Finally, to create a new column for DataFrame, never use attribute access, the correct way is to use either [] or .loc indexing:

>>> df
   a  b
0  7  6
1  5  8
>>> df['c'] = df.a + df.b 
>>> # OR
>>> df.loc[:, 'c'] = df.a + df.b
>>> df # c is an new added column
   a  b   c
0  7  6  13
1  5  8  13