[Spivak]

Unless you're talking philosophically how classes and closures are actually isomorphic then no, it doesn't. None of the variables in the outer scope are captured in the class instance.

https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/main/Lib/functools.py...

Here's a simplified version of that code that demonstrates the pattern.

    class partial:
      def __init__(self, func, *args, **kwargs):
        self.func = func
        self.args = args
        self.kwargs = kwargs

      def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        return self.func(*self.args, *args, **(self.kwargs | kwargs))

      p = partial(add, 5)  # -> an instance of partial with self.args = (5,)
      res = p(4)  # -> calls __call__ which merges the args and calls add(5, 4)

[eru]

I was talking 'philosophically' in that sense. The partial object does create a new scope that binds a few of those variables.

But you are also right that the mechanisms in Python are different (on some suitable mid-level of abstraction) for those two.