In Python 2, there are two distinct types of classes, the so-called "old" (or "classic") and (increasingly inaccurately named) "new" style classes. This post will discuss the differences between the two as visible to the Python programmer, and explore a little bit of the implementation decisions behind those differences.

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Previously I discussed the GNU Pth library which implements cooperative multi-tasking for the C programming language. That's pretty low level. But I recently read about cooperative multi-tasking at an even lower level: inside the microcode of the Xerox Alto central processor! It's hard to get much lower level than that.

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