Steven D'Aprano <st...@remove-this-cybersource.com.au> writes: > On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:03:09 -0700, Michele Simionato wrote: > > I usually recommend avoiding multiple inheritance altogether. > > In my case, PClass and NClass are actually private classes, and it > seemed like a nice way to avoid having to fill MyClass with > slightly-different versions of each method to deal with slight > variations in the arguments. I'm aiming for some sort of polymorphic > inheritance: in a method, if the argument meets some condition, > inherit from PClass, if it meets another condition inherit from > NClass, and so on. Is there are standard name for this idea?
Your description makes me suspect a code smell. If you want to decide at method-invocation time whether branch A or branch B should be taken, it doesn't sound much like a good use of inheritance at all. The correct semantic of inheritance, after all, is the “is-a” relationship; if you don't know at the time of writing the ‘MyClass’ whether it is-a ‘PClass’ or is-a ‘NClass’, then it's probably neither. Instead, I would be reassessing the design and seeing whether object composition (“has-a” relationships) fits better than inheritance. -- \ “He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let | `\ that fool you. He really is an idiot.” —Groucho Marx | _o__) | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
