First, before diving into Python, let’s talk about JavaScript. Here’s a refresher of JavaScript’s object model from the MDN.

JavaScript is designed on a simple object-based paradigm. An object is a collection of properties, and a property is an association between a name (or key) and a value.

Because of this simplicity, JavaScript allows for object literals. You don’t need a constructor to define an object! This is especially useful for one-off objects.

    let car = {
      model: "Skyline",
      manufacturer: "Nissan",
      year: "1996",
      race: function() {
        console.log("Vroom vroom!");
      }
    };

Here’s two approaches to doing the same in Python.

First, from Programming Ideas with Jake we can create an Object class and give it a constructor that puts every attribute-value pair into __dict__. Recall that __dict__ is “a dictionary or other mapping object used to store an object’s (writable) attributes.”

    class Object:
       def __init__(self, **attributes):
          self.__dict__.update(attributes)

    car = Object(
        model = "Skyline",
        manufacturer = "Nissan",
        year = "1996",
        race = lambda: print("Vroom vroom!")
    )

So far so good right? There’s a few issues that I see. What if race were a much more complex function? I would like to have an inline function. Python’s lambdas have caveats; things like multi-line lambdas are not allowed. So, instead, we can use class variables and class methods.

    class Car:
        model = "Skyline"
        manufacturer = "Nissan"
        year = "1996"

        @classmethod
        def race(cls):
            print("Vroom vroom!")
            print("Skrrrrt!")

We can access and use attributes as we would a typical Python object.

      Car.model = "Mustang"
      Car.manufacturer = "Ford"
      Car.race()

Why is this possible? Because, in Python, classes themselves are objects!