Koenig: > want to know about the Python community's stylistic > preferences for defing > such hierarchies that don't absolutely need a root.
I don't know if there is an official style guide or a Guido's prononcement on the issue. Personally I found such hierarchies attractive in the past, but recently I realized that they look better on the paper than in practice. A non-needed class just adds cognitive burden to the maintainer. Also, I don't like to use isinstance if I can avoid it. Finally, It is always easy to refactor later and to add a base class if there is a real need for it. Paraphrasing Occam, I would say "don't multiply base classes without necessity" ;) Michele Simionato -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list