Experienced programmers learning Python should read this: http://effbot.org/zone/python-objects.htm
Try to understand the advantages of this approach, and understand its costs. Essentially, everything you do in Python (or related languages) involves resolving a name. Sometimes the number of dictionary look-ups (name dereferences) required to do anything is very expensive in runtime performance. If your code is not compute-bound (as most codes are not; these days communication-bound or limited by database performance are more common) the increase in your own performance will be much more important. If your code does do so much computing (as mine do) that performance matters, you may still find Python useful, but it is less of a slam-dunk. mt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
