Style question - defining immutable class data members

[Maxim Khitrov]

On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 12:50 PM, MRAB <google at mrabarnett.plus.com> wrote:
> Maxim Khitrov wrote:
>>
>> Very simple question on the preferred coding style. I frequently write
>> classes that have some data members initialized to immutable values.
>> For example:
>>
>> class Test(object):
>>    def __init__(self):
>>        self.some_value = 0
>>        self.another_value = None
>>
>> Similar effect can be achieved by defining some_value and
>> another_value for the entire class, like so:
>>
>> class Test(object):
>>    some_value = 0
>>    another_value = None
>>
>> The advantage of doing this is that the assignments are evaluated once
>> and thus the creation of that class is a bit faster. Access is still
>> performed through self.some_value and self.another_value. Is there a
>> reason to prefer the first style over the second?
>>
> In the first case each instance has its own attributes, whereas in the
> second case the attributes belong to the class and are thus shared by
> all the instances. Which you use depends on whether you want them shared
> or not.

When the types are immutable, there is no difference. The second case
is faster and consumes less memory (initially), but nothing else
changes. I'm simply asking if it is considered poor style to define
data members for the class when they are only used by instances.

- Max