Quotes About Class

Like a def, a class statement is an object builder, and an implicit assignment — when run, it generates a class object and stores a reference to it in the name used in the header.

All the statements inside the class statement run when the class statement itself runs (not when the class is later called to make an instance).

the attributes of a namespace object are usually implemented as dictionaries, and class inheritance trees are (generally speaking) just dictionaries with links to other dictionaries.

In general, though, any type of name assignment at the top level of a class statement creates a same-named attribute of the resulting class object.

In Chapter 32, we'll also meet Python static methods (akin to those in C++), which are just self-less functions that usually process class attributes.

Assignments to instance attributes create or change the names in the instance, rather than in the shared class.

Assignments to instance attributes create or change the names in the instance, rather than in the shared class. More generally, inheritance searches occur only on attribute references, not on assignment:

Normally we create instance attributes by assigning them in class __init__ constructor methods, but this isn't the only option.

In a sense, a module is like a single-instance class, without inheritance, which corresponds to an entire file of code.

Class attributes can also be created, though, by assigning attributes to the class anywhere a reference to the class object exists — even outside the class statement.

Again, though, they may be created by assignment anywhere a reference to the instance appears, even outside the class statement. Normally, all instance attributes are initialized in the __init__ constructor method; that way, later method calls can assume the attributes already exist.

Operator overloading is coded in a Python class with specially named methods; they all begin and end with double underscores to make them unique. These are not built-in or reserved names; Python just runs them automatically when an instance appears in the corresponding operation.

On a related note, you can also code multiple __init__ methods within the same class, but only the last definition will be used; see Chapter 31 for more details on multiple method definitions.

Despite its syntax details, Python's class system really is largely just a matter of searching for an attribute in a tree of objects, along with a special first argument for functions.

That is, a class is a local scope and has access to enclosing local scopes, but it does not serve as an enclosing local scope to further nested code.

But it is also, and more basically, because if this century has shown one thing, it is that politics cannot be reduced to economics: differences in values and ideologies must be taken seriously and not simply regarded as foils for class interest. Fascism, in other words, was more than just another form of capitalism.

Class warfare or soaking the so-called rich may make for good populist demagoguery and serve the political ends of the governing masterminds, but it does nothing to solve the grave realities of the federal government's insatiable appetite for spending and its inability to reform itself.

not meant to serve the political expedients of a class of governing masterminds and their fanatical followers.

For the Statist, there must be a class struggle and it must be a never-ending struggle, for it is perhaps his most valuable weapon in his war against the individual, the free market, and ultimately the civil society.

The salient feature of America in the Age of Obama is a failed government class institutionally committed to living beyond its means, and a citizenry too many of whom are content to string along.

It was not my class of people. There was not a producer, a press agent, a director, an actor.

There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind Junior.

Two fat ladies, 88! Not that you'd find these ladies at a bingo hall, of course... they're altogether a higher class of fat lady.

Every Harvard class should have one Democrat to rescue it from oblivion.