Python's namedtuple can be really useful as a lightweight, immutable data class. I like using them for bookkeeping parameters rather than dictionaries. When some more functionality is desired, such as a simple docstring or default values, you can easily refactor the namedtuple to a class. However, I've seen classes that inherit from namedtuple. What functionality are they gaining, and what performance are they losing? For example, I would implement this as
from collections import namedtuple
class Pokemon(namedtuple('Pokemon', 'name type level')):
"""
Attributes
----------
name : str
What do you call your Pokemon?
type : str
grass, rock, electric, etc.
level : int
Experience level [0, 100]
"""
__slots__ = ()
For the sole purpose of being able to document the attrs cleanly, and __slots__ is used to prevent the creation of a __dict__ (keeping the lightweight nature of namedtuples).
Is there a better recommendation of a lightweight data class for documenting parameters? Note I'm using Python 2.7.