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[Python-Dev] readonly __doc__

Brett Cannon brett at python.org
Thu Oct 22 20:39:53 CEST 2009 
On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 11:18, ssteinerX at gmail.com <ssteinerx at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> On Oct 22, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>
>  Well __doc__ isn't a normal attribute -- it doesn't follow inheritance
>> rules.
>>
>
> Maybe we could add a ticket to flag this in the docs.
>
>
Sure, go for it.


> Is __doc__ not normal due to its general underscorishness, or is it not
> normal because it isn't?
>
>
I honestly don't follow that sentence. But __doc__ is special because of its
use; documenting how to use of an object. In this case when you call
something like help() on an instance of an object it skips the instance's
value for __doc__ and goes straight to the defining class and stops there as
you don't care how a subclass says to use itself as that is not what you are
working with.


> Any others that deserve special notice, while we're at it?
>

Don't know.
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