[Python-Dev] Breaking calls to object.init/new (original) (raw)

Adam Olsen rhamph at gmail.com
Thu Mar 22 22:06:03 CET 2007

On 3/22/07, Thomas Wouters <thomas at python.org> wrote:

On 3/22/07, Adam Olsen <rhamph at gmail.com> wrote: > In general. Too many things could fail without errors, so it wasn't > obvious how to use it correctly. None of the articles I've read > helped either.

I've been thinking about writing an article that explains how to use super(), so let's start here :) This is a long post that I'll probably eventually copy-paste-and-edit into an article of some sort, when I get the time. Please do comment, except with 'MI is insane' -- I already know that. Nevertheless, I think MI has its uses.

I'm going to be blunt, and I apologize if I offend. In short, your article is no better than any of the others.

TOOWTDI

What you've done is list off various ways why multiple inheritance and super() can fail, and then provide a toolbox from which a programmer can cobble together a solution to fit their exact needs. It's not pythonic. What we need is a single style that can be applied consistently to 90+% of problems while still requiring minimal effort to read later.

Using keyword arguments and consuming them is the best I've seen so far. Sure it's a little verbose, but the verbosity is repetitive and easy to tune out. It also requires the classes to cooperate. News flash: Python isn't C++ or Java. Python uses a shared dict rather than private namespaces in each class. Python always requires the classes to cooperate.

If you want to combine uncooperative classes you need to use delegation. I'm sure somebody could whip up a metaclass to automate it, especially with the new metaclass syntax, not to mention ABCs to say "I'm string-ish" when you're delegating str.

-- Adam Olsen, aka Rhamphoryncus

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