THE VIDEO SHELF · python class overuse
Stop Writing Classes
Jack Diederich's PyCon 2012 talk argues that classes are overused in Python and walks through real code, refactoring away unnecessary classes, exceptions and modules. It popularized the heuristic that a class with two methods, one being __init__, should be a function.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN returns to it repeatedly as the canonical argument for simplicity and against premature abstraction, and several commenters say it changed how they write code.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Next Day Video
- Topic
- python class overuse
- Format
- talk
- Level
- intermediate
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 8
- HN mentions in dataset
- 20
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2012–2025
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
I think you're thinking of Jack Diederich's talk "Stop Writing Classes". You can (and should!) watch it online here: [VIDEO]
inglesp on Hacker News · 2012-10
In An Object is not a HashStop writing classes - Jack Diederich - [VIDEO] Show them this. I'm still grateful for the moment I grew dissatisfied with OOP, or at least OOP in the Java/C# way. I was almost getting to an intermediate level in python (by myself) and had been …
Vaskivo on Hacker News · 2014-12
In Ask HN: What do you think about using classes in Python?Stop writing classes is one of my favorites. Also many pycon talks are great, or any talks by Brandon Rhodes. [VIDEO]
kyleperik on Hacker News · 2018-04
In Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.