Is there a reason not to send super().__init__() a dictionary instead of **kwds?

Question

I just started building a text based game yesterday as an exercise in learning Python (I\'m using 3.3). I say \"text based game,\" but I mean more of a MUD than a choose-yo

Answer 1

This is not python specific, but the greatest problem I can see with passing arguments like this is that it breaks encapsulation. Any class may modify the arguments, and it's much more difficult to tell which arguments are expected in each class - making your code difficult to understand, and harder to debug.

Consider explicitly consuming the arguments in each class, and calling the super's __init__ on the remaining. You don't need to make them explicit:

class ClassA( object ):
    def __init__(self, arg1, arg2=""):
        pass

class ClassB( ClassA ):
    def __init__(self, arg3, arg4="", *args, **kwargs):
        ClassA.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)


ClassB(3,4,1,2)

You can also leave the variables uninitialized and use methods to set them. You can then use different methods in the different classes, and all subclasses will have access to the superclass methods.