Does python hate cathy?

[Patrick Mullen]

It seems like this is mostly a non-issue.  The original code actually
works correctly (of course the updated versions that solve the
exception problem are probably better).  The only thing that is going
haywire is the interpreter shutdown process.  I think it is going a
bit overboard to "consider __del__ harmful" because it might throw an
exception as the program is quitting.  It is important to not rely on
__del__ too much but there can be some designs where you need to know
when something is gone, and you don't know exactly where or when
something is deleted.

Then again, I can count the number of times I have ever needed __del__
with no fingers (never used it!).  Still, quite interesting to
explore.