[Python-Dev] Classes and Metaclasses in Smalltalk (original) (raw)

Donald Beaudry Donald Beaudry donb@abinitio.com
Wed, 02 May 2001 11:31:45 -0400

Guido van Rossum <guido@digicool.com> wrote,

AFAIK, Smalltalk has only single inheritance, and so does Java, so there 'super' is enough. Will we need to add a "::" operator to Python???

Multiple inheritance introduces a potential wrinkle in my definition of the unbound instance. The problem is that search starts one level too high. That is in:

class foo(b1, b2):
      def __repr__(self):
          super = b1._  #this one
          super = b2._  #or this one?
          return super.__repr__(self)

we dont know which base class to choose as the starting point for the search. This problem already exist. Now, if we want to avoid it, this:

class foo(b1, b2):
      def __repr__(self):
          super = foo.__super__
          return super.__repr__(self)

comes to mind.

-- Donald Beaudry Ab Initio Software Corp. 201 Spring Street donb@init.com Lexington, MA 02421 ...Will hack for sushi...