Final classes in Python 3.x- something Guido isn’t telling me?

You can simulate the same effect from Python 3.x quite easily:

class Final(type):
    def __new__(cls, name, bases, classdict):
        for b in bases:
            if isinstance(b, Final):
                raise TypeError("type '{0}' is not an acceptable base type".format(b.__name__))
        return type.__new__(cls, name, bases, dict(classdict))

class C(metaclass=Final): pass

class D(C): pass

will give the following output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Temp\final.py", line 10, in <module>
    class D(C): pass
  File "C:\Temp\final.py", line 5, in __new__
    raise TypeError("type '{0}' is not an acceptable base type".format(b.__name__))
TypeError: type 'C' is not an acceptable base type