[Tutor] Memory consumption question

[Marc Tompkins]

I thought of an analogy I like better than my sign-painting one: ordering a
sandwich.
Imagine: you're at the deli, and your waitron asks what you want.  (Granted,
this is a silly example.)
  "Classic" order: "I'd like a sandwich with two slices of rye bread,
Russian dressing, corned beef, and Swiss cheese.  Oh, and I'd like that
grilled."
  "New-style" order: "Reuben, please."

Now, I speak not of the time and materials required to construct the
above-mentioned tasty treat - in my analogy, Python is the long-suffering
waitron, not the cook - but I gotta figure that the second option will take
less space to write on the check.  Perhaps about 134 bytes' worth.

For some reason I'm hungry now...

On Nov 15, 2007 11:22 AM, Kent Johnson <kent37 at tds.net> wrote:

> Marc Tompkins wrote:
> > I didn't mean that exactly literally - for goodness' sake, this is a
> > high-level, object-oriented, interpreted language!  We're not writing
> > machine language here.
>
> Yes, I was thinking I should re-word my email, it was worded a bit too
> strongly...
>
> > What I did mean, and will probably still not express as clearly as I'd
> > like, is that when you create a "classic" class, lots of options remain
> > unresolved - slots vs. dict comes to mind - and Python needs to reserve
> > extra space accordingly.   About 134 extra bytes, it would appear.
>
> Still not sure I know what you mean. AFAIK old-style classes don't
> support slots, at least not user-defined slots. I do remember talk of
> new-style classes and properties allowing a much cleaner implementation
> of the class mechanisms, and it seems plausible that such generalization
> would lead to fewer options and streamlining of the class structure, but
> I don't know enough about the specifics to know if that is right.
>
> I poked around a bit in the source to see if I could figure it out but
> got tired of trying to sift through the header files...
>
> Kent
> >
> > On Nov 15, 2007 9:32 AM, Kent Johnson <kent37 at tds.net
> > <mailto:kent37 at tds.net>> wrote:
> >
> >     Marc Tompkins wrote:
> >
> >      > class B is a "new-style' class, meaning that it inherits from a
> base,
> >      > pre-existing class (in this case "object", which is as basic and
> >     generic
> >      > as you can get!).  class A has to start from nothing, which is
> why it
> >      > consumes more memory yet has less functionality.
> >
> >     I don't think it is really accurate to say that an old-style class
> >     "starts from nothing". It doesn't have an explicit base class but it
> >     does have all the old-style class machinery which is built in to
> Python.
> >
> >     I don't know why new-style classes are smaller though. My guess is
> that
> >     it is because there was an opportunity to streamline the class
> structure
> >     based on experience.
> >
> >     Kent
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > www.fsrtechnologies.com <http://www.fsrtechnologies.com>
>
>


-- 
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