inheritance with new-style classes - help

[Terry Reedy]

"Greg Copeland" <gtcopeland2002 at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:1115402296.414753.324000 at f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Okay, I have:
[snip]
>        self._childAttrib = "child"
...
> AttributeError: 'Child' object has no attribute '_childAttrib'
>>>> x.__dict__
> {'_attrib': 'base'}
>
> What??!  Where the heck did self._childAttrib go?  And why?

I don't immediately see the problem.  Failing that, I would rerun with
        print 'setting '_childAttrib' # and
        print self._childAttrib
bracketing the line where it should be set, and go one from there.

Terry J. Reedy