Overriding a global

[Ian Kelly]

On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 1:34 AM, Joshua Landau
<joshua.landau.ws at gmail.com> wrote:
>> No, there is another difference, the reason for rebinding the name.
>> In a subclass, you would rebind a class attribute because that
>> particular attribute, which you need to change, is used and expected
>> by external code, either in the base class or in code that uses its
>> API (or both).  Local variables in functions, on the other hand, are
>> not externally visible, so there is no need to do this in order to
>> conform to the expectations of external code.  All it does in that
>> case is to sow potential confusion.
>>
> So you're saying you should never extend methods or attributes that
> aren't meant to be used as part of of the API? Because I can claim
> guilty on this point.

No, I'm only saying that replacing attributes in subclasses is
accepted because it is necessary due to external dependencies, and
that local variables in functions don't have that excuse.