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Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object

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On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 12:36 AM, Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <mailman.12582.1407072928.18130.python-list@python.org>,
>  Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 11:25 PM, Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> wrote:
>> > in which case, I've said, "make Foos just like objects, except for, oh,
>> > never mind, there aren't any differences".  But, in reality, the system
>> > bolted on the ability to have user-defined attributes without telling
>> > me.  I don't think it's unreasonable to be surprised at that.
>>
>> I agree that this is slightly surprising. However, imagine if it were
>> the other way:
>>
>> class Foo(object):
>>     x = 1
>>     def __init__(self): self.y = 2
>>
>> These would throw errors, unless you explicitly disable __slots__
>> processing. When there's two ways to do things and both would be
>> surprising, you pick the one that's going to be less of a surprise, or
>> surprising less often, and accept it. That doesn't mean it's not a
>> problem, but it's better than the alternative.
>>
>> ChrisA
>
> I'm not following you at all.  What does "the other way" mean, and how
> would that cause the above to generate errors, and what does this have
> to do with __slots__?

Fact #1: Some classes, like object, don't have a dictionary for
arbitrary attributes. (I'll call this __slots__ mode, although it's
not technically __slots__when it's a C-implemented class.)

Fact #2: You can subclass such objects.

There are two ways that this subclassing could be done. Either it
maintains __slots__ mode, which means you can see every change (and
going "class Foo(Bar): pass" will make an exact subclass of Bar with
identical behaviour), or it drops __slots__ and adds a dictionary
unless you explicitly reenable __slots__.

>>> class Base(object): __slots__ = ('a', 'b', 'c')
>>> class Deriv(Base): pass
>>> Base().d = 1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#71>", line 1, in <module>
    Base().d = 1
AttributeError: 'Base' object has no attribute 'd'
>>> Deriv().d = 1

Python opted to go with the second behaviour: the subclass is not
bound to the superclass's __slots__, but gets a dictionary unless it
itself specifies __slots__ (in which case it gets all of them,
parent's included):

>>> class SlottedDeriv(Base): __slots__ = ('d', 'e', 'f')
>>> SlottedDeriv().a = 1
>>> SlottedDeriv().d = 1
>>> SlottedDeriv().g = 1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#79>", line 1, in <module>
    SlottedDeriv().g = 1
AttributeError: 'SlottedDeriv' object has no attribute 'g'

The alternative would be for __slots__ to normally copy down, and to
have to be explicitly removed - for "pass" to be actually equivalent
to this:

>>> class Deriv(Base): __slots__ = Base.__slots__
>>> Deriv().d = 1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#82>", line 1, in <module>
    Deriv().d = 1
AttributeError: 'Deriv' object has no attribute 'd'

and for some other syntax to do what "pass" currently does. That has
the benefit of purity (it's easy to describe what happens, there's no
magic going on), but at the expense of practicality (you'd have to
explicitly de-slottify your classes before you can add functionality
to them). And we know what the Zen of Python says about which of those
takes priority.

ChrisA

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3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Mark Summerfield <list@qtrac.plus.com> - 2014-08-01 23:45 -0700
  Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-02 10:14 +0300
    Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Mark Summerfield <list@qtrac.plus.com> - 2014-08-02 00:38 -0700
      Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-02 11:03 +0300
        Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-08-03 02:00 +1000
          Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-02 20:07 +0300
            Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-08-02 18:29 +0100
              Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-02 21:33 +0300
    Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-08-03 01:43 +1000
      Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object (was: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children) Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2014-08-03 05:58 +1000
        Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object (was: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children) Mark Summerfield <list@qtrac.plus.com> - 2014-08-02 13:46 -0700
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object (was: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-03 07:05 +1000
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-08-02 22:16 +0100
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-03 07:24 +1000
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-08-02 22:23 +0100
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object (was: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children) Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com> - 2014-08-02 16:18 -0700
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object (was: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-03 09:27 +1000
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object (was: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children) Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2014-08-02 18:59 -0600
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-02 22:40 -0400
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-02 22:43 -0400
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Albert-Jan Roskam <fomcl@yahoo.com> - 2014-08-03 02:17 -0700
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Peter Otten <__peter__@web.de> - 2014-08-03 11:37 +0200
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Albert-Jan Roskam <fomcl@yahoo.com> - 2014-08-03 03:51 -0700
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Albert-Jan Roskam <fomcl@yahoo.com> - 2014-08-03 04:14 -0700
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Peter Otten <__peter__@web.de> - 2014-08-03 13:23 +0200
            Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-03 17:51 +0300
              Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-08-03 11:09 -0400
                Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-03 18:52 +0300
              Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-03 18:55 -0400
                Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-08-04 11:19 +1000
                Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-04 01:26 -0400
              Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-08-04 10:13 +1000
                Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-08-03 20:59 -0400
                Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2014-08-04 13:00 +1200
                Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-04 08:41 +0300
                Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2014-08-04 00:41 -0600
                Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-04 09:57 +0300
          Re: Correct type for a simple "bag of attributes" namespace object Akira Li <4kir4.1i@gmail.com> - 2014-08-03 18:22 +0400
      Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-08-03 13:28 +0100
        Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-08-03 08:40 -0400
          Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-03 22:56 +1000
            Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-08-03 09:25 -0400
              Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-03 23:35 +1000
                Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-08-03 10:36 -0400
                Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-04 01:00 +1000
      Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-08-03 18:38 +0100
        Re: Correct type for a simple “bag of attributes” namespace object Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-08-03 13:44 -0400
  Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-08-02 08:46 +0100
    Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Mark Summerfield <list@qtrac.plus.com> - 2014-08-02 01:03 -0700
      Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-02 19:14 -0400
  Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-02 19:12 -0400
  Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Brian Blais <bblais@gmail.com> - 2014-08-05 07:36 -0400
    Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-05 15:04 +0300
      Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com> - 2014-08-05 07:31 -0500
        Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-08-05 16:19 +0300
          Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2014-08-05 15:11 +0100
          Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-08-06 02:14 +1000
      Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-08-05 22:43 +1000
        Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-05 23:08 +1000
      Re: 3 Suggestions to Make Python Easier For Children Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-05 23:00 +1000

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