[Python-Dev] repr(x) != x.__repr__()

[Guido van Rossum]

> On Thu, Mar 28, 2002 at 10:28:12AM -0500, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > I'm probably going to reject this bug as "won't fix".  I specifically
> > put code in the new classes to create this behavior.  It's partly a
> > performance hack: many operations become much slower if they have to
> > check the instance __dict__ first.  But I also believe it's poor
> 
> If this is by design it's ok. I suspected it might be an accidental result 
> of the different internal structure of new style classes.

Yes, I thought about it long and hard and decided that it should be a
feature.

> > check the instance __dict__ first.  But I also believe it's poor
> > style to override a system operation on the instance rather than on
> > the class.  
> 
> And if it's not a system operation?  Is method assignment in general 
> considered poor style?

That's up to the application.

> Something as vile and unspeakable as changing an 
> object's __class__ at runtime?  ;-)

I don't know what you're talking about. :-)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)