Hi Philip
C++ to Python is a steep 'unlearning' curve...
That's worthy of QOTW. I decided not to reply to this thread earlier, but you just convinced me otherwise :)
I work in Delphi a lot, which is in a lot of respects very similar to C. I have come to the conclusion that function overloading was introduced to allow the same calling syntax and even functionality to be applied to different *types*. This is a consequence of the fact that in Delphi and C, for example, typing is static.
In a dynamic language like python, however, overloading isn't necessary. Not only can the *type* of a function argument be determined at run-time, the *number* of arguments can as well.
Though Alex indicated differently earlier, I intend to always use an "if" statment inside one constructor to initialise any class in the situation where the arguments may be different in number and type. I don't have the years of experience that Alex has, however, so I may end up regretting it but right now, it seems to me to be the clearest approach in this situation.
thx Caleb -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
