I have implemented the suggestion I made a while back concerning an extended call syntax which would let you write class Foo(Blarg): def __init__(self, a, b, c, *args, **kw): Blarg.__init__(self, *args, **kw) You can get the patch from: http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python/extcall.html <P><A HREF="http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python/extcall.html"> Extended Call Syntax</A> - Greg Ewing's implementation of extended argument passing syntax (for use e.g. in class constructors). (29-Aug-99) == Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, | The address below is not spam- University of Canterbury, | protected, so as not to waste Christchurch, New Zealand | the time of Guido van Rossum. greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz -- ----------- comp.lang.python.announce (moderated) ---------- Article Submission Address: python-announce@python.org Python Language Home Page: http://www.python.org/ Python Quick Help Index: http://www.python.org/Help.html ------------------------------------------------------------