class methods vs. functions

[beliavsky@aol.com]

What are the pros and cons of defining a method of a class versus defining
a function that takes an instance of the class as an argument? In the example
below, is it better to be able to write 
z.modulus() or modulus(z)? Is there a difference between Python and C++ in
this regard?

from math import sqrt
class xy:
    def __init__(self,x,y):
        self.x = x
        self.y = y
    def modulus(self):
        return sqrt(self.x**2 + self.y**2)

def modulus(z):
    return sqrt(z.x**2 + z.y**2)
    
z = xy(3,4)
print z.modulus()
print modulus(z)



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