I'm a fairly new Python coder, learning along with my son (actually, hopefully a bit ahead of him...). We're stuck on something.
As part of solving a backwards induction problem (purely as a learning experience, we are geeks), we are going to create N objects, each of the class "interview". We will first create the N_th interview, which will calculate, based on data we pass to it, its expected payoff value. We will then create interview N-1, which needs to know the expected payoff of interview N in order to determine a decision and then calculate its own expected payoff. We then create interview N-2, which needs to know the expected payoff of interview N-1, etc., until we reach interview 1. 1. How can we best (that is, most Pythonically) let interview N-1 know the expected value of interview N and so on. One way would be to define a variable "payoff_of_continuing" which gets set to the expected value of interview N and is passed to interview N-1 when is created. Interview N-1 then resets "payoff_of_continuing", which is passed to interview N-2 when it is created, etc. Is there a more Pythonic approach? 2. When we want to output the results of the analysis, how do we most Pythonically get each interview object in turn to report its identity, the result of its decision and its expected payoff (e.g., For interview 3, stop if you interview a good candidate. This interview's expected value is 2.5). I know how to do the reporting part (print....), it's the "getting each interview object in turn to..." part that I'm unsure about. We could have each interview report as it is created, but I'm wondering if the splitting it into "Create all the objects" and "Report the results from all the objects" is sensible. For one thing, it would allow compiling the results into a table, etc. I really appreciate any input. I'm a competent procedural programmer (albeit not primarily in Python), but a dabbler in object oriented programming (we've already done this problem procedurally, but want to try it again as OOP). Thank you!! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
