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Re: __init__ is the initialiser

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From Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz>
Newsgroups comp.lang.python
Subject Re: __init__ is the initialiser
Date Mon, 03 Feb 2014 12:38:00 +1300
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Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> (In hindsight, it was probably a mistake for Python to define two create-
> an-object methods, although I expect it was deemed necessary for 
> historical reasons.

I'm not sure that all of the reasons are historical. Languages
that have a single creation/initialisation method also usually
have a mechanism for automatically calling a base version
of the method if you don't do that explicitly, and they
typically do it by statically analysing the source. That's
not so easy in a dynamic language.

If Python only had __new__, everyone who overrode it would
have to start with an explicit call to the base class's
__new__, adding a lot of boilerplate and forcing people
to learn how to make base method calls much sooner than
they would otherwise need to.

-- 
Greg

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Re: __init__ is the initialiser Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2014-01-31 14:52 -0500
  Re: __init__ is the initialiser Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-02-01 03:42 +0000
    Re: __init__ is the initialiser Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-02-01 15:35 +1100
      Re: __init__ is the initialiser Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-02-01 05:51 +0000
        Re: __init__ is the initialiser Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2014-02-01 00:28 -0800
    Re: __init__ is the initialiser Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2014-01-31 20:55 -0800
    Re: __init__ is the initialiser Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2014-02-01 07:28 -0500
      Re: __init__ is the initialiser Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-02-01 09:40 -0500
        Re: __init__ is the initialiser Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-02-01 15:07 +0000
          Re: __init__ is the initialiser Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-02-01 11:17 -0500
    Re: __init__ is the initialiser Tim Delaney <timothy.c.delaney@gmail.com> - 2014-02-02 07:09 +1100
      Re: __init__ is the initialiser Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-02-02 01:28 +0000
    Re: __init__ is the initialiser Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2014-02-02 15:27 +1100
    Re: __init__ is the initialiser Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2014-02-03 12:38 +1300
      Re: __init__ is the initialiser Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-02-03 00:33 +0000
        Re: __init__ is the initialiser Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2014-02-04 12:47 +1300
    Re: __init__ is the initialiser Tim Delaney <timothy.c.delaney@gmail.com> - 2014-02-03 11:02 +1100

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