Is self.__dict__.update(**kwargs) good or poor style?

Question

In Python, say I have some class, Circle, that inherits from Shape. Shape needs x- and y-coordinates, and, in addition, Circle needs a radius. I want to be able to initializ

Answer 1

I would say that the first method is definitely preferable, because explicit is better than implicit.

Consider what would happen if you made a typo when initializing a Circle, something like Circle(x=1., y=5., rr=3.). You want to see this error immediately, which would not happen with __dict__.update(kwargs).