[siliconc0w]

I feel like one of the merits of python is the looseness of classes and multiple inheritance. You get the benefits of OO without some of the pitfalls. Sure, you can go through the effort of defining an abstract class but it often isn't needed since your object is often composed of a bunch of separate objects - dealing with a formal contract to some 'abstract' version of your object just adds boilerplate and ends up creating convoluted class hierarchies.