Deleting objects - my earler post got garbled

[John J. Lee]

tkpmep at hotmail.com (Thomas Philips) writes:

> I have a question about deleting objects. My game has two classes,
> Player and Alien, essentially identical, instances of which can shoot
> at each other. Player is described below
> 
> class Player(object):
>     #Class attributes for class Player
>     n=0 #n is the number of players
> 
>     #Private methods for class Player
>     def __init__(self,name):
>         self.name = name
>         self.strength = 100
>         Player.n +=1
> 
>     def __del__(self):
>         Player.n -=1
>         print "I guess I lost this battle"
>     
>     #Public methods for class Player
>     def blast(self,enemy,energy):
>         enemy.hit(energy)
> 
>     def hit(self,energy):
>         self.strength -= energy
>         if(self.strength <= 50):
>             self.__del__()
> 
> I instantiate one instance of each class: 
> Hero = Player("Me")
> Villain = Alien("Not Me")
> 
> If Hero hits Villain with 
> Hero.blast(Villain, 100), 
> 
> Villain dies and executes its destructor (__del__). The game then
> ends. However, 
[...questions, questions, questions...]

Don't trouble yourself with these questions Thomas, you really don't
want to know.

Just Don't Do That: simply represent your character's death by some
means other than destroying your Hero.  __del__ methods are to be
avoided unless you really can't see another way.  And as for *calling*
__del__ explicitly... well, I think my laziness in not liking to think
about what happens then is a virtue :-)

thank-Guido-this-isn't-C++-ly y'rs,


John