assignment to __class__ (was Re: Copy constructors)

[Terry Reedy]

"Alex Martelli" <aleax at aleax.it> wrote in message
news:9lb0kg01hkt at enews1.newsguy.com...
> "Guido van Rossum" <guido at python.org> wrote in message
> news:cpk807e2pg.fsf at cj20424-a.reston1.va.home.com...
> > Exactly.  What's going on here is that I'm trying to tease out how
far
> > I should go with the safety device without making the tool
unusable.
>
> *unusable* is a *VERY* strong word.  Java is not "unusable".

I agree that 'unusable' is way too strong.  The bottom line is
preventing core dumps or otherwise trashing memory.  Given that
instances will no longer all have the same memory layout, some
restriction on class reassignment is necessary.  But I would stop with
that.

Terry J. Reedy