[Python-Dev] RE: Hot-To Guide for Descriptors - Nits! :-)

[Jeremy Hylton]

On Wed, 2004-01-21 at 16:55, Barry Warsaw wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-01-21 at 16:48, Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> 
> > IOW, I think the docs ought to continue using wording like this for
> > property: "Return a property attribute for new-style classes (classes
> > that derive from object)."   
> 
> I'd love it if we could come up with a different term for these beasts
> that "new style classes".  Some day they won't be new any more, and may
> in fact be the only kind of classes in Python.  Not that I have any good
> idea for what they should be called...

Someday new-style classes will be old enough that they'll just be called
classes.  Classic classes will be a special case that people will have
to explain.  

I don't think that will happen with current Python, because a class is a
classic class unless you perform some explicit step to make it
otherwise.  If new-style classes were the default, then we could just
call them classes.  (And then we'd need some special way to construct
classic classes.)

Perhaps it's unfortunate that we have the names "new" and "classic." 
There could be users thinking that, like Coke, we'll forget about new
classes and go back to classic classes.

Jeremy