using names before they're defined

[davehowey at f2s.com]

Paddy,

thanks for your mail.

> In Digital electronics we have what are called netlists, (and also
> component lists)

yes, years back I did a 3rd year project on a 'logic simulator' which
used the kind of thing you are talking about. I think spice does as
well. Fortunately my problem is a little simpler, phew. [by the way, as
an aside, check out modelia/dymola for some really powerful simulation
stuff http://www.dynasim.se/ - it uses powerful symoblic algebra
algorithms to derive system equations and the solve them numerically]

> With a bit more effort you can create component and link factories
> that will name instances with the variable they are assigned to
> without having to put that information in twice.

sorry - could you explain a bit more? sounds interesting and also
brings me onto another question that has been bugging me, which is, if
I want to create components (as object instances) at run time (rather
than through a python code imported in), how do I do this? i.e. if I
hardcoded something like
turbine1 = turbine(...)
then python knows that turbine1 is a turbine. but if I had say some
kind of user interface and I want to create turbine1 (or suchlike) on
the fly, how do I actually do that? how do I create objects after run
time?

Dave