On Tue, 25 Nov 2008, Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch wrote: > On Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:27:41 +0000, John O'Hagan wrote: > > Is it better to do this: > > > > class Class_a(): > > def __init__(self, args): > > self.a = args.a > > self.b = args.b > > self.c = args.c > > self.d = args.d > > def method_ab(self): > > return self.a + self.b > > def method_cd(self): > > return self.c + self.d > > > > or this: > > > > class Class_b(): > > def method_ab(self, args): > > a = args.a > > b = args.b > > return a + b > > def method_cd(self, args) > > c = args.c > > d = args.d > > return c + d > > > > ? > > > > Assuming we don't need access to the args from outside the class, is > > there anything to be gained (or lost) by not initialising attributes > > that won't be used unless particular methods are called? > > The question is if `args.a`, `args.b`, …, are semantically part of the > state of the objects or not. Hard to tell in general.
Would you mind elaborating a little on that first sentence? > > I know it's a made up example but in the second class I'd ask myself if > those methods are really methods, because they don't use `self` so they > could be as well be functions or at least `staticmethod`\s. I guess I went overboard keeping the example simple :) : the real case has many methods, and they all use "self" (except one, actually, so I'm looking up "static methods" now; thanks). Regards, John -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
