Difference between type and class

[Thomas Troeger]

> That would imply that I cannot create instances of a type, only of
> a class that implements the type, wouldn't it?
> 
> But Python denotes 'int' as a type *and* I can instantiate it.

Now I start getting confused also ;-)

 >>> a=5
 >>> a.__class__
<type 'int'>
 >>> a.__class__.__class__
<type 'type'>
 >>> dir(a)
['__abs__', '__add__', '__and__', '__class__', '__cmp__', '__coerce__', 
'__delattr__', '__div__', '__divmod__', '__doc__', '__float__', 
'__floordiv__', '__getattribute__', '__getnewargs__', '__hash__', 
'__hex__', '__index__', '__init__', '__int__', '__invert__', '__long__', 
'__lshift__', '__mod__', '__mul__', '__neg__', '__new__', '__nonzero__', 
'__oct__', '__or__', '__pos__', '__pow__', '__radd__', '__rand__', 
'__rdiv__', '__rdivmod__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', 
'__rfloordiv__', '__rlshift__', '__rmod__', '__rmul__', '__ror__', 
'__rpow__', '__rrshift__', '__rshift__', '__rsub__', '__rtruediv__', 
'__rxor__', '__setattr__', '__str__', '__sub__', '__truediv__', '__xor__']

I think in Python everything is implemented as a class which makes 
sense. AFAIK you can implement a certain interface in a custom class and 
it behaves like, for example, a builtin integer. But I guess one of the 
gurus can clarify this matter with an appropriate URL ;-)