Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Object-Oriented Python Inheritance Super-Duper!

Brian Haucke
Brian Haucke
13,717 Points

Why do we need Super() to make the Thief sneaky?

In other words, why can't we just do this:

 class Thief(Character):
      sneaky = True

Instead of doing all this:

 def __init__(self, name, sneaky=True, **kwargs):
     super().__init__(name, **kwargs)
     self.sneaky = sneaky

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
230,970 Points

The super call is not involved with setting "sneaky". It just gives the base class a chance to set up other things first. But the rest of the second example causes "sneaky" to be True by default, but allows it to be explicitly set otherwise during the instance creation if an argument for it is given.

The first example would always set it to True for the entire class, and not keep a separate value for each instance (self).