Why not 3.__class__ ?

[James_Althoff at i2.com]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
>I find the ''.__class__ form butt-ugly,

Me too.  But then, I'm not the one that designed the double-double
underscore stuff to begin with <wink>.

And I don't find these "butt-ugly"

x.class()
0.class()
''.class()
[].class()
{}.class()

or
x.getClass()
0.getClass()
. . .

or
x.get_class()
0.get_class()
. . .

but maybe that's just me.

>and would recommend type('')
>instead.  Fortunately, in 2.2 there are built-in names that express
>these types much clearer:
>
>isinstance(x, str)
>isinstance(x, int)
>isinstance(x, list)
>isinstance(x, tuple)
>isinstance(x, dictionary)

That's good.  There's still the slight downside that it's yet another thing
to remember or look up in a book: is it "str" or "string"?, "int" or
"integer"?, "dict" or "dictionary"?.

In any case, the new 2.2 forms appear to be the way to go.

Thanks (Tim and Guido) for the recommendation,

Jim