Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes

[Joe Mason]

In article <mailman.11.1080489481.20120.python-list at python.org>, Jeff Epler wrote:
>     def __call__(
> __metaclass__ = PrototypeMeta
> 
> class Thing:

You're missing most of call() there.

BTW, I've got three pure-python solutions now (four when this one's
fixed) but it turns out they all suffer from a flaw:

>>> class TestProto: l = []
... 
>>> class Test2(TestProto): pass
... 
>>> TestProto.l
[]
>>> Test2.l
[]
>>> Test2.l.append(0)
>>> Test2.l
[0]
>>> TestProto.l
[0]

We really need copy-on-write lists and dicts - and large objects in
general - for this to work.

A bunch of the solutions already check for method definitions and
convert them to instances of a type ProtoMethod.  We could do the same
with COWDict and COWSequence classes in __setattr__, or something like
that.  That takes care of 80% of the problem.  If we can make it work
for subclasses as well, it works for 90%.  For the remaining 10% (large
datastructures unrelated to dicts/sequences) it might be enough just to
let the user handle it.

Any thoughts?

(BTW, I plan to write up all the various solutions I've seen - including
a link to Prothon - in the next few days, if I have time after work.
Next weekend at the latest.)

Joe