Would be very easy to solve had python been a static programming language that supported overloading. I am making a class called Complex which is a representation of complex numbers (I know python has its own, but i want to make one myself), where a is the real number and b is the imaginary (Complex(a, b)). It should support adding Complex instances together (Complex(2, 4) + Complex(4, 5) = Complex(6, 9)), as well as adding an integer (Complex(2, 3) + 4 = Complex(6, 3)). However, due to the nature of python...

__add__(self, other):

...I have to choose which the class will support, because it won't recognize types at compile-time, as well as not supporting overloading of functions. What is the best solution? Do I have to write an if statement in relation to the datatype of the other parameter?

What you could do is check for the thing being of instance Complex, and if not, turn it into one, like so:

def __add__(self, other):if isinstance(other, Complex):# do additionelse:return self + Complex(other, 0)

That of course does not eliminate type checking, but it reuses whatever you are doing in __init__ (which is probably checking if input is int or float).

If at the moment you do not do type checking in init, it is probably a good idea, and this looks reasonable, excepting built-in complex type.