Many languages have the concept of a final class – one that cannot be inherited. Python does not have such a facility as any class can be inherited, but you can use a metaclass to make the equivalent ...

David Mertz writes about Python metaclass programming on O'Reilly. "Classes and objects are simple, right? Once you really get it, isn't that all there is? Well, no--there's a whole class of advanced ...

David Mertz, and Michele Simionato explain metaclass programming concepts in Python. "Most readers are already familiar with the concepts of object-oriented programming: inheritance, encapsulation, ...

Metaclasses are advanced and you generally don’t need to know about them or make use of them. But knowing how they work might suggest alternative approaches to many problems. This extract is from my ...