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In Praise of Metaclasses!
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For over 20 years, ;login: has been a print magazine with a digital version; in the two decades previous, it was USENIX’s newsletter, UNIX News. Since its inception 45 years ago, it has served as a medium through which the USENIX community learns about useful tools, research, and events from one another. Beginning in 2021, ;login: will no longer be the formally published print magazine as we’ve known it most recently, but rather reimagined as a digital publication with increased opportunities for interactivity among authors and readers.
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Much maligned and misunderstood, metaclasses might be one of Python’s most useful features. On the surface, it might not be clear why this would be the case. Just the name “metaclass” alone is enough to conjure up an image of swooping manta rays and stinging bats attacking your coworkers in a code review. I’m sure that there are also some downsides, but metaclasses really are a pretty useful thing to know about for all sorts of problems of practical interest to systems programmers. This includes simplifying the specification of network protocols, parsers, and more. In this installment, we’ll explore the practical side of metaclasses and making Python do some things you never thought possible. Note: This article assumes the use of Python 3.
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