[Python-Dev] Things to Know About Super

[Michele Simionato]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 8:56 PM, Raymond Hettinger <python at rcn.com> wrote:
> I would state this differently:  "The use cases for cooperative multiple
> inheritence don't arise often in practice; so, if we dropped support
> for those cases, you probably wouldn't notice until you encountered
> one of the rare occasions where it was the right answer to your problem."
>
> There was some quote floating around that expressed the situation
> well -- it went something like: "Python makes most problems easy
> and hard problems possible".  The use cases for cooperative multiple
> inheritance fall in the latter category.

It is just a matter of how rare the use cases really are. Cooperative
methods has been introduced 6+ years ago. In all this time surely
they must have been used. How many compelling uses of cooperation
we can find in real life code? For instance in the standard library or
in some well known framework? This is a serious question I have been
wanting to ask for years. I am sure people here can find some example,
so just give me a pointer and we will see.

> BTW, I really like your paper explaining the MRO.  Excellent work.

The issue with that paper is that I wrote it when my Python experience
was reduced to six month and my experience with real life large object oriented
frameworks was zero. Nowadays I value simplicity more.