On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 05:26:11PM +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:14:47 -0500, Tycho Andersen wrote: > > > I've had similar experiences. In fact, in light of all this - why does > > __del__ exist at all? Novice python users may (reasonably) assume it > > behaves similarly to a C++ destructor (even though the docs warn > > otherwise). > > What makes you think that novice Python users will be familiar with C++ > destructors?
I don't, really. It's just natural to assume that __del__ is the "opposite" of __init__, when it's really not (i.e. every object is __init__ed, but not every object is destructed and thus __del__'d). Novice programmers may make this assumption (indeed, many experienced programmers do as well). > Be careful about assuming that idioms in <INSERT FAVOURITE LANGUAGE HERE> > will be shared by all Python programmers, novice or expert. Yeah, C++ was the first language which has destructors that came to mind. It's certainly not my favorite ;-) \t -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
