[hythloday]

This sounds very much like Python's __getattribute__ [0] method. Is there a difference I'm not understanding?

[0] http://docs.python.org/reference/datamodel.html#object.__get...

[sshumaker]

I'm not that familiar with Python, but can you use __getattribute__ to provide methods as well? Using __index is the way you typically implement inheritance in Lua.

[timtadh]

yes.

    >>> class A(object):
    ...   def __getattribute__(self, key):
    ...     try: return object.__getattribute__(self, key)
    ...     except AttributeError: return lambda: 12
    ...
    >>> a = A()
    >>> a.asdf
    <function <lambda> at 0x7fbb8fb6f848>
    >>> a.asdf()
    12