Opening a new issue per Raymond's request at msg64764:

"""
It would be *much* more useful to direct effort improving the mis-
reporting of the number of arguments given versus those required for
instance methods:
  >>> a.f(1, 2)
  TypeError: f() takes exactly 1 argument (3 given)
"""

I would suggest that this misreporting may be dear to old-beards 
reminding the time when there was not as much difference between methods 
and functions as there is now.

It does not seem to be that hard to change the diagnostic to 

  >>> a.f(1, 2)
  TypeError: f() takes no arguments (2 given)

but the novice users would much rather see "a.f() takes no arguments (2 
given)." The later is unfortunately not possible.

Raymond, what would you say to "<class 'A' instance>.f() takes no 
arguments (2 given)" diagnostic?