in xrelies on arguably non-pythonic magicand does not fully apply to operator overloading or traditionally coded multiple-inheritance trees in xseems so verbose in this intended role that it may make code more complex instead of less claims code maintenance benefits that may be more hypothetical than real in python practice even ex-java programmers should also consider this book' preferred traditional technique of explicit-name superclass calls to be at least as valid solution as python' super -- call that on some levels seems an unusual and limited answer to question that was not being asked by most python programmersand was not deemed important for much of python' history at the same timethe super call offers one solution to the difficult problem of samenamed method dispatch in multiple inheritance treesfor programs that choose to use it universally and consistently but therein lies one of its largest obstaclesit requires universal deployment to address problem most programmers probably do not have moreoverat this point in python' historyasking programmers to change their existing code to use this call widely enough to make it reliable seems highly unrealistic perhaps the chief problem of this rolethoughis the role itself--same-named method dispatch in multiple inheritance trees is relatively rare in real python programsand obscure enough to have generated both much controversy and much misunderstanding surrounding this role people don' use python the same way they use ++javaor dylanand lessons from other such languages do not necessarily apply also keep in mind that using super makes your program' behavior dependent on the mro algorithm-- procedure that we've covered only informally here due to its complexitythat is artificial to your program' purposeand that seems tersely documented and understood in the python world as we've seeneven if you understand the mroits implications on customizationcouplingand flexibility are remarkably subtle if you don' completely understand this algorithm--or have goals that its application does not address--you may be better served not relying on it to implicitly trigger actions in your code orto quote python motto from its import this creedif the implementation is hard to explainit' bad idea the super call seems firmly in this category most programmers won' use an arcane tool aimed at rare use caseno matter how clever it may be this is especially true in scripting language that bills itself as friendly to nonspecialists regrettablyuse by any programmer can impose such tool on others anyhow--the real reason 've covered it hereand theme we'll revisit at the end of this book as usualtime and user base will tell if this call' tradeoffs or momentum lead to broader adoption or not at the leastit behooves you to also know about the traditional explicitname superclass call techniqueas it is still commonly used and often either simpler or the super built-in functionfor better or worse