"Super()" confusion

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:34:05 -0200, Daniel Fetchinson  
<fetchinson at googlemail.com> escribió:

>>>>> Hello. I've been scouring the web looking for something to clear up a
>>>>> little confusion about the use of "super()" but haven't found  
>>>>> anything
>>>>> that really helps. Here's my simple example:
>>>>>
>>>>> [snip]
>>>>>
>>>>> "super(Child,self).__init__(filePath)
>>>>> TypeError: super() argument 1 must be type, not classobj"
>>>>>
>>>>> What have I done wrong? Thanks in advance for any help.
>>>>
>>>> Consider whether you really need to use super().
>>>>
>>>> http://fuhm.net/super-harmful/
>>>
>>> Did you actually read that article, understood it, went through the
>>> tons of responses from python-dev team members, including Guido
>>
>> Yes.  Why the knee-jerk reaction?
>
> Because throwing around that link carries about the same amount of
> information as "perl is better than python", "my IDE is better than
> yours", "vim rulez!", "emacs is cooler than vim", etc, etc.

Not at all. It contains accurate and valuable information that isn't  
available elsewhere.

>> I simply pointed out a resource which
>> might be helpful to someone trying to learn to use super.
>
> It will certainly not be helpful to anyone trying to learn the usage
> of super. The person who wrote that essay is simply misunderstanding
> the concept, as has been explained countless times by the python dev
> team. Hence, it only increases confusion, adds to the noise and
> spreads false alarm.

AFAIK, all facts appearing in said article are still true (except for 3.x  
which uses a shorter form). If super usage had been clearly documented in  
the first place, this had not happened.
Perhaps you could point us to some resource explaining how is super  
supposed to be used correctly?
And of those giving explanations in python-dev, nobody cared to add a  
single word to the Python documentation for years.

> Honestly, I don't understand how this thing got so much out of
> control. If anyone starts an intelligent question or remark about
> super, this essay is thrown in no matter what. Anyone can explain why?

Because for a very loooooong time (seven years, 2001-2008) super was  
almost undocumented. The Library Reference -before release 2.6- only had a  
short paragraph, the online documentation referred (and still does) to the  
original essay by Guido introducing descriptors, which is inaccurate and  
outdated, and then the "... harmful" article was the only source of  
information available.
Worse was the fate of packages and how they're imported: nobody "could be  
bothered to spell that out" (sic); or how import works in general, still  
barely documented (one has to dig into the PEP collection, trying to guess  
what parts are truly implemented and what parts are only a wish...)

-- 
Gabriel Genellina