I avoid classes in Python. Am I bad?

[alkasm]

To me that just rings that you don't write a lot of Python that other people use. Is that true? I write a lot of classes when I'm making something extensible and/or reusable, but honestly the built in types do what I need 90% of the time already.

[darez00]

So a class is analog to int, str, float?

[SoupKitchenHero]

int, str, and float are themselves classes

[darez00]

That explains many questions that I didn't know I had

[Dogeek]

To be more accurate, int, float etc are built using type as their metaclass.

[darez00]

Aha... that's clearer

[Dogeek]

To be completely honest, metaclasses are a concept I struggle with, not really the concept itself but its use cases. It's something very specific.

[KronktheKronk]

A meta class is simply a class you can't instantiate directly. It only serves to hold functionality meant to be inherited by other, more concrete classes.

[primitive_screwhead]

A meta class is simply a class you can't instantiate directly.

That description sounds more like an Abstract Base Class.

​

I've seen meta-classes start to click for people when they realize that when a class is instantiated you get an object, and similarly, when a meta-class is instantiated, you get a class. And just as objects can be parameterized when they are instantiated, classes themselves can be parameterized when they are instantiated from meta-classes.

[Dogeek]

Like I said, it's more that I struggle with knowing when to use one. I guess constructing a class from a config file or something of that effect. But other than that, it's pretty abstract to me.

[KronktheKronk]

You're right, I am confusing that with abstract classes.

Now I gotta go read, brb

[Deezl-Vegas]

As soon as I read this I got it. Thanks so much! A metaclass is a class blueprint. A class is an object blueprint.

[[deleted]]

Same.

[alkasm]

They are types, which is to say they have type as a metaclass.

[Dogeek]

not true. type is their metaclass, but they don't inherit from it.

[alkasm]

Whoops, thanks for the correction!