Living without static member functions

[Richard Brodie]

There's a programming quirk of mine that I haven't seen elsewhere,
although probably well-known to some of you. Here's a rough outline
of the code:

class Milkman:

    allMilkmen = {}

    def __init__(self, name):
        ...
        allMilkmen[name] = self

    def find(self, name):
        return(allMilkmen[name])

It's handy for debugging or garbage collecting like activities. Also
for distributed applications, where it's harder to keep object references
around.

Firstly, I'm curious if this is well-known, useful or boneheaded design
on my part.

Secondly, it doesn't work in Python, of course, because I need a
Milkman to find all the others (i.e. Milkman.find['Phil'] doesn't work).
I can do something similar by taking allMilkmen and find to module
scope; that seems kind of ugly, and worries me that I'm abusing the
language. Can I do better?

Thirdly, is there some neat way that I can find all members of a class
by inquiring of the Python internals?

Introspectively yours.
Richard Brodie.