I forstthpughthgegoal here was to avoid imports that may not be needed if the class isn’t actually used. If that’s the case, then it’s better to simply put classes with heavyweight imports in their own module.
And:
class Bar(object):
def __first__(): import math def __init__(self, n): self.a = math.log(2, n)
This would bring “math” into the __first__ function’s local namespace, and it would not be accessible in other methods anyway.
You could put that import line in __init__, or, if needed in other methods, in __init__:
Import math self.math = math
Then it wouldn’t get imported until the first instance was created.
But this is generally not considered good style.
I have, occasionally, imported heavy weight modules in optional, rarely used, methods so that they aren’t imported (or even need to be there) if they aren’t needed.
-CHB