Python does not have that many issues with misuse of OO as compared to Java/C++ because it's *dynamically* typed language and extremely powerful *dictionary* data structure.
I browsed docs a bit today, and they also confirm what I have believed - that OO is totally secondary in Python. In fact, object/classes/metaclasses are nothing but *dictionaries with identity* in python. Love this approach. In fact, you can very easily implement your own *OO model* completely separate of Python's OO model... Now I actually strongly believe that Python's author has introduced the whole OO model just to attract and make happy OO population... In fact,
*Python's dynamic type checking mechanisms + dictionary is way more powerful than Java/C++'s static type checking mechanisms + their OO mechanisms*
and you can definitely be more productive using Python's structured programming than Java/C++ OO programming :-)... and Python is probably the best example why we should have skipped OO all together..
--- second, instead of playing with OO plagued design principles do as follows:
1. separate data, functionality, and structure from each other as much as you can (in Python only valid structural element I've seen so far is module - ignore objects & classes!)
2. do not assume any have identity (even if the underlying language model provides and uses one) - so don't pass them around and crazy stuff...
so you get a nice program with separate data structures and functions that operate on these data structures, with modules as containers for both (again ideally separated). Very simple to do and maintain no matter what OO preachers tell you...
Davor -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
