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copied!<p>No, typechecking arguments in Python is not necessary. It is <strong>never</strong> necessary.</p> <p>If your code accepts addresses as rawstring or as a <code>Node</code> object, your design is broken.</p> <p>That comes from the fact that if you don't know already the type of an object in your own program, then you're doing something wrong already.</p> <p>Typechecking hurts code reuse and reduces performance. Having a function that performs different things depending on the type of the object passed is bug-prone and has a behavior harder to understand and maintain.</p> <p>You have following saner options:</p> <ol> <li><p>Make a <code>Node</code> object constructor that accepts rawstrings, or a function that converts strings in <code>Node</code> objects. Make your function assume the argument passed is a <code>Node</code> object. That way, if you need to pass a string to the function, you just do:</p> <pre><code>myfunction(Node(some_string)) </code></pre> <p>That's your best option, it is clean, easy to understand and maintain. Anyone reading the code immediatelly understands what is happening, and you don't have to typecheck.</p></li> <li><p>Make two functions, one that accepts <code>Node</code> objects and one that accepts rawstrings. You can make one call the other internally, in the most convenient way (<code>myfunction_str</code> can create a <code>Node</code> object and call <code>myfunction_node</code>, or the other way around).</p></li> <li><p>Make <code>Node</code> objects have a <code>__str__</code> method and inside your function, call <code>str()</code> on the received argument. That way you always get a string by coercion.</p></li> </ol> <p>In any case, <strong>don't typecheck</strong>. It is completely unnecessary and has only downsides. Refactor your code instead in a way you don't need to typecheck. You only get benefits in doing so, both in short and long run.</p>

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