Inheritance & super()

Inheritance

TypeScript's extends becomes parentheses after the class name in Python.

TypeScript:

class Animal {
  name: string;

  constructor(name: string) {
    this.name = name;
  }

  speak(): string {
    return `${this.name} makes a sound`;
  }
}

class Dog extends Animal {
  speak(): string {
    return `${this.name} barks`;
  }
}

Python:

class Animal:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name

    def speak(self):
        return f"{self.name} makes a sound"

class Dog(Animal):
    def speak(self):
        return f"{self.name} barks"

dog = Dog("Rex")
print(dog.speak())   # Rex barks

Dog inherits everything from Animal — including __init__ — and only overrides speak().

super()

If a child class needs its own __init__ but still wants the parent's setup logic to run, call super() — same idea as TypeScript's super(...) inside a constructor.

TypeScript:

class Dog extends Animal {
  breed: string;

  constructor(name: string, breed: string) {
    super(name);
    this.breed = breed;
  }
}

Python:

class Dog(Animal):
    def __init__(self, name, breed):
        super().__init__(name)
        self.breed = breed

The difference: TypeScript calls super(name) directly; Python calls super() first (no arguments) to get a reference to the parent, then calls .__init__(name) on it. Same result — the parent's constructor runs and sets up self.name before Dog adds anything of its own.

Inheritance & super()

Inheritance

super()

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