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custom data objects

Do this!

In your code, replace your Athlete
class code with your new AthleteList
class code, and don’t forget to change
get_coach_data() to return an
AthleteList object instance as
opposed to an Athlete object instance.

Q: Sorry…but not three minutes ago you were telling me not Q: Can I inherit from my own custom classes?

to expose the inner workings of my class to its users, because
that was fundamentally a bad idea. Now you’re doing the exact A: Of course, that’s the whole idea. You create a generic class
opposite! What gives? that can then be “subclassed” to provide more specific, targeted
functionality.
A: Well spotted. In this particular case, it’s OK to expose the fact Q:
that the class is built on top of list. This is due to the fact that the Can I put my class in a module file?
class is deliberately called AthleteList to distinguish it from
the more generic Athlete class. When programmers see the A: Yes, that’s a really good idea, because it lets you share your
word “list” in a class name, they are likely to expect the class to work class with many of your own programs and with other programmers.
like a list and then some. This is the case with AthleteList. For instance, if you save your AthleteList class to a file
Q: And I can inherit from any of the built-in types? called athletelist.py, you can import the into your code
using this line of code:

A: Yes. from athletelist import AthleteList
Q: What about inheriting from more than one class…does
then use the class as if it was defined in your current program. And,
Python support multiple interitance? of course, if you create a really useful class, pop it into its own
module and upload it to PyPI for the whole world to share.
A: Yes, but it’s kind of scary. Refer to a good Python reference text
for all the gory details.

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