Encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism

[Roy Smith]

In article <5006b2e2$0$29978$c3e8da3$5496439d at news.astraweb.com>,
 Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:52:59 -0400, Roy Smith wrote:
> 
> > you could write in Python:
> > 
> > # Type matching will get checked at run-time 
> > def my_function(mpf, ot):
> >    assert isinstance(mpf, MassivelyParallelFrobinator) 
> >    assert isinstance(ot, OtherThing)
> 
> Keep in mind that assertions are not guaranteed to run. Code like the 
> above is buggy, because if Python is run under the -O (optimize) flag, 
> assertions will be stripped out.

One could equally say that "code like the above is efficient, because if 
Python is run under the -O (optimize) flag, assertions will be stripped 
out" :-)

> Better is to use explicit type checks and raise an exception yourself:
> 
>     if not isinstance(x, int):
>         raise TypeError('expected an int, got %r' % x)

Maybe, but that's two lines where one does just fine.  If you're going 
to go for type-bondage, you might as well be efficient and succinct 
about it.