[Tutor] When to use classes

[Dave Angel]

Ni hung <niihung at gmail.com> Wrote in message:

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> I am learning programming using python. I think of solving a
>  problem using functions and for this reason all/most of my
>  code consists of functions and no classes.  I have some understanding of classes/Object Oriented Programming. I can write simple classes but I do not understand when to use classes

Welcome to the forum., and to Python. 

You may not realize it, but you're already using classes in even
 the simplest Python program. int is a class, list and dict are
 classes. Even a function is an instance of a class.  So what
 you're really asking is when you should create your own new
 classes. 

The short answer is whenever the standard ones (there are many
 hundreds of them,  maybe thousands)
 is inadequate for your
 needs.  When writing simple programs,  compositions of existing
 classes can take you a long way.  When you need something a bit
 trickier,  Python has ways of generating classes that you might
 not realize,  such as namedtuple. 

At its simplest,  a class is a way to bundle up data items and
 method items so that each instance has all of those attributes
 with a simple call to the constructor. The simplest class is
 probably NoneType,  which has about 20 attributes,  I think all
 dunder ones.  (Use dir () to look at objects and find their
 attributes,  and help () to learn more about most
 attributes)

But sooner or later,  you find yourself with a dict of keys and
 values,  where the values are lists of tuples,  and you'll throw
 up your hands and write a nice class to make it easier to keep
 track of things. 

-- 
DaveA