Creating objects in Python way

Question

I'm learning Python and recently started with the OOP part. I know there are different ways to create objects but I do not know what way I should aim at.

Create objects with arguments or without arguments? Then I do understand the best way to change the attributes is with method calls.

Code:

class Human(object):
 def __init__(self):
 self.name = ''
 self.age = 0
 def set_name(self, name):
 self.name = name
 def set_age(self, age):
 self.age = age
class Humans(object):
 def __init__(self, name, age):
 self.name = name
 self.age = age
 def set_names(self, name):
 self.name = name
 def set_ages(self, age):
 self.age = age
# Create object without arguments
boy = Human()
boy.set_name('Peter')
boy.set_age(30)
# Or create object with arguments
girl = Humans('Sandra', 40) 

• user2357112: The source you're learning from seems to have been created for Java and crudely adapted for Python with only syntactical changes. The practices it teaches you, like setters for everything, are not all appropriate for Python.
• user2357112: Also, your use of plurals in names makes no sense.
• Prune: Welcome to StackOverflow. Please read and follow the posting guidelines in the help documentation. on topic and how to ask apply here. In particular, this question is quite broad and prone to opinions. "Best practice" is not solidly defined here, and often varies among companies, projects, and programmers. For instance, since Python doesn't actually have "private" attributes, you can't enforce the get/set interface -- and a lot of my Python friends consider it to be bloat.
• nutgut: I guess the plurals was a bad ide, only tried two define to different classes in a simple way. Yes, I have earlier study some Java and tryed to figure out the best way to do it in Python.
• nutgut: I agree that best practice is broad. My question should maybe be like 'Create object in Python way'

Answer 1

An object should be in an usable state after creation. That said, a human with no name and no age is not useful. So the second implemention is preferred. Another thing is, that you don't need setters in python, which reduces the class to

class Humans(object):
 def __init__(self, name, age):
 self.name = name
 self.age = age