Inheriting from object

[Peter Hansen]

Bengt Richter wrote:
> BTW, there's something about referring to type(self) by its not
> always dependably bound (though usually global) name that bothers me.
> 
> I wonder if the above common use of super could be implemented as a property of object,
> so you'd normally inherit it and be able to write
>     self.super.__init__(*args, **kwargs)  # (maybe spell it self.__super__.__init__(...) I suppose)
> 
> I.e., self.__super__ would effectively return the equivalent of
>     super(type(self), self)

This doesn't work: type(self) is always the type of the instantiated 
(child) class, not the type of the class at whatever level of the class 
hierarchy the __init__() calls currently have reached.

In other words, with these definitions:

class A(object):
   def __init__(self):
      super(type(self), self).__init__()  # does not do what you want

class B(A):
   def __init__(self):
      super(type(self), self).__init__()	# works okay here

if you do "b = B()", the first __init__ will work (i.e. B's __init__ 
will find and call A.__init__), but the next one won't (i.e. A.__init__ 
will now try calling A.__init__ recursively, giving you an eventual 
stack overflow).

-correcting-bengt-richter-on-such-arcana-is-always-dangerously y'rs,
  Peter