Conflicting needs for __init__ method

[Mark Dickinson]

On Jan 16, 10:25 am, "Mark Dickinson" <dicki... at gmail.com> wrote:

> that is, I was working from the following two assumptions:
>
> (1) *Every* time a Rational is created, __init__ must eventually be
> called, and
> (2) The user of the class expects to call Rational() to create
> rationals.

(with apologies for replying to myself)

I'm still not being careful.  The assumptions should be these:

(1) Any creation of a Rational instance must eventually go through
Rational().
(2) A call to Rational() eventually results in a call to __init__.
(3) The user of the class expects to call Rational() to create
rationals.

There you are:  three flawed assumptions for the price of two! (1)
fails because __new__ provides an alternative, (2) could easily become
untrue by changing the metaclass, and (3)---well, who knows what the
user expects?

Right.  Now that I've thoroughly analyzed my own stupidity, things are
much clearer.  Thank you to all who replied.

Mark