[Tutor] Re: Help with classes (Joseph Q.)

[Joseph Quigley]

class Message:
  def init(self, p = 'Hello world'):
     self.text = p
  def sayIt(self):
     print self.text
m = Message()
m.init()
m.sayIt()
m.init('Hiya fred!')
m.sayIt()

> Well this OOP stuff is realy hard for me as I have never even
> programmed it took me a while just to understand defs.
That's OK, OOP is quite a strange concept for many folks. Its
actually easier to learn as a beginner than for folks who
have been programming without OOP for a long time!
> determined to learn how to do it. My biggest problem is with
__init__
> I still don't understand how to use it.
init is simply where you initialise the data attributes of your class.
It could be defined as a normal method and you call it explicitly:
class Message:
  def init(self, txt = 'Hello world'):
     self.text = txt
  def sayIt(self):
     print self.text
And every time you create a message object you explicitly call it:
m = Message()
m.init('Hiya fred!')
m.sayIt()
I was having problems with the __init__ too.
class Message:
  def init(self, txt = 'Hello world'):
     self.text = txt
  def sayIt(self):
     print self.text
And every time you create a message object you explicitly call it:
m = Message()
m.init()
m.sayIt()
m.init("Hello World is so overdone. It hard to break tradition though :->")
m.sayIt()
Why did you put 'Hiya fred!' in place of having m.init print "Hello World"?
Now what are dictionaries and the __name__ really used for? A byte of 
python never got that through my thick skull.

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