polymorphism (was Re: Type checking in python?)

[Oivvio Polite]

Thanks a lot for all the answers.

I see now that giving the responsibility to the caller is the path of
righteous.

My problem, I should have pointed this out in the first post, is that the
caller doesn't want any responsibility at all.

We're building a workbench for computational molecular biology. The intended
audience is not one of programmers. It is one that uses Excel and
Powerpoint. If you want them to do any programming you have to trick them in
to it. In than context it's a great thing if a constructor can take just
about anything and make sense out of it that is a good thing. It will
flatten the learning curve.

Therefore I will depart from the narrow path and go of with the try / except
hoard.

After all this I still don't get the difference between polymorphism and
overloading. I've just ordered a book on OO design. So maybe that
distinction will become clearer to me, then again, maybe it won't :)



oivvio