[ubernostrum]

Operator overloading, in any language that supports it, has always been controversial, so Python doesn't really add anything new there.

The thing is, it's also incredibly useful at times. Language features that are "useful when you have the use case for it, confusing when you don't" tend to provoke that reaction.

[int_19h]

In Python, though, operator overloading is not merely "supported". It's how all operators are defined, including built-in ones.

   >>> dir(123)
   ['__abs__', '__add__', '__and__', '__bool__', '__ceil__', '__class__', '__delattr__', '__dir__', 
   '__divmod__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__float__', '__floor__', '__floordiv__', '__format__',
   '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getnewargs__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__index__', '__init__',
   '__init_subclass__', '__int__', '__invert__', '__le__', '__lshift__', '__lt__', '__mod__', 
   '__mul__', '__ne__', '__neg__', '__new__', '__or__', '__pos__', '__pow__', '__radd__', 
   '__rand__', '__rdivmod__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__rfloordiv__', 
   '__rlshift__', '__rmod__', '__rmul__', '__ror__', '__round__', '__rpow__', '__rrshift__', 
   '__rshift__', '__rsub__', '__rtruediv__', '__rxor__', '__setattr__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', 
   '__sub__', '__subclasshook__', '__truediv__', '__trunc__', '__xor__', 'bit_length', 'conjugate', 
   'denominator', 'from_bytes', 'imag', 'numerator', 'real', 'to_bytes']

   >>> (1).__add__
   <method-wrapper '__add__' of int object at 0x678C40A0>

   >>> (123).__add__.__doc__
   'Return self+value.'

   >>> (1).__add__(2)
   3

Which is a good thing, because it makes the whole arrangement a lot more consistent that languages in which this sort of thing is just magic associated with a specific primitive type (sometimes it's even inconsistent - e.g. in C#, + for ints and strings is magic, but + for decimal is an overloaded operator). In Python, all that magic is confined to the magic methods. Learn them once, and they work the same everywhere.

[florabuzzword]

Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong. It’s cool as hell! I’m totally gonna use it for a GUI menu-building script interface I’m making right now :).

I have just never done it before, and I think this is the first time I have seen the concept, so the first thing that popped in my mind we’re all the things that can go wrong. But, also all the things that can go right.