pychecker too self-centric?

[Michele Simionato]

I have just downloaded pychecker (version 0.8.12) and discovered that it 
is a little too much self-centric for my taste.

Consider the following example, taken from "Unifying types and classes in
Python 2.2":

class inch(float): #Guido's example
    "Convert from inch to meter."
    def __new__(cls, arg=0.0):
        return float.__new__(cls, arg*0.0254)

Pychecker will complain since the first argument of '__new__' is 'cls' and
not 'self':

new.py:3: self is not first method argument

However, in this case, I would say that calling the first argument 'cls' 
is much more correct than calling it 'self', since '__new__' is a 
static method, i.e. the first argument is not an instance of the class.
In general, I think pychecker should be able to distinguish static methods 
(and class methods, where the first argument should be called 'cls') from 
traditional methods. Is this going to happen in a future version?

In addition, it would be nice if pychecker could distinguish methods
in a normal class from methods in a metaclass. The first argument for
a method in a metaclass should be 'cls', not 'self'. I mean, in principle it
is perfectly correct to call it 'self', since at the very end a metaclass *is*
a class, but still I think that calling it 'cls' enhances a lot the clarity 
and avoids any possible confusion.

I have a question of style, too.

When I use __new__ in a metaclass, I have decided to use as its
first argument 'meta'. Look for instance at the following example:

class MetaCounter(type):
    "Adds an attribute serialnumber to its instances"
    counter=0
    def __new__(meta,name,bases,dic):
        meta.counter+=1
        dic['serialnumber']='This is instance #%s of MetaCounter' %meta.counter
        return type.__new__(meta,name,bases,dic)

#Creates two instances of Metacounter
class C: __metaclass__=MetaCounter 
class D(C): pass

print C.number # This is instance #1 of MetaCounter
print D.number # This is instance #2 of MetaCounter

I thinks is would be confusing to call the first argument 'cls', for the
same reason it would be confusing to call 'self' the first argument of 
'__new__' in a class: the first argument of '__new__' in a class is the 
class, not an instance of it, whereas the first argument of '__new__' 
in a metaclass is the metaclass, not an instance of it.

In summary, I use the following conventions:

                                   in a class             in a  metaclass


1st arg normal method               self                   cls
1st arg __new__                     cls                    meta
1st arg classmethod                 cls                    meta
1st arg staticmethod (not __new__)  free choice            free choice

I would like to know if other people use these conventions and if there are
style guides on the subject.

Regards,

--
Michele Simionato - Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
210 Allen Hall Pittsburgh PA 15260 U.S.A.
Phone: 001-412-624-9041 Fax: 001-412-624-9163
Home-page: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~micheles/