[Python-Dev] Re: Python-Dev Digest, Vol 8, Issue 91 (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz
Tue Mar 30 20:47:50 EST 2004

Edward Loper <edloper at gradient.cis.upenn.edu>:

On a related note, now that Python has class methods, is there much point in a "singleton" pattern? In particular, why not just make a class that only defines class methods, and uses the class namespace to store variables (instead of an instance namespace)?

Classes do various magic things on attribute lookups that you might not want for an object that isn't meant to be used as a class.

For a while I've been wondering whether Python should have an "instance" statement that's analogous to "class" but creates an instance instead, e.g.

instance fred(Foo): blarg = 42 def f(): do_something()

would be equivalent to something like

class _fred(Foo): def f(): do_something() fred = _fred() fred.blarg = 42

People working on interactive fiction would love something like this, I expect.

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+ University of Canterbury, | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a | Christchurch, New Zealand | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc. | greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz +--------------------------------------+

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