Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:37:29 +1200, Gregory Ewing wrote:
Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:29:24 +0200, Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:
>
"mro" would have been the proper name for "super".
That's your opinion. In any case, whether super() was called super() or
mro() or aardvark() makes no difference to the functionality or whether
it is useful.
I think the point is that the name is misleading, because it makes it
*sound* like it's going to call a method in a superclass, when it fact
it might not.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. If you call super() from a
method that doesn't exist in any superclass, then you are correct, it
won't call a method in a superclass, and will raise AttributeError.
But in the more sensible case that you only call super() when there is
actually something to inherit, then of course it calls the method in a
superclass. It certainly doesn't call methods from arbitrary unrelated
classes, only those which are in the MRO. That is, superclasses.
If Z is below A in the hierarchy, then we have no difficulty in
identifying Z as a subclass of A, and likewise we should have no problem
with identifying A as *a* (and not "the") superclass of Z, no matter how
distant they are or how tangled the DIG between them.
The exception would be if you could have loops in the class hierarchy, in
which case the concepts of super- and sub-classes breaks down completely.
But even if some other languages allowed that, Python doesn't, so we're
safe.
Quoting Michele's article (I think he's still hanging around this list)
"Readers familiar will single inheritance languages, such as Java or
Smalltalk, will have a clear concept of superclass in mind. This
concept, however, has /no useful meaning/ in Python or in other multiple
inheritance languages".
the complete article on super:
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=236275
super is a strange name for something that makes no sense in python
(talking about superclass here). It doesn't take away the usefulness of
super, but it's a proof that you can ruin a good feature with a bad name.
JM
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