Alright, abstract methods in Python because who doesn’t love a good abstraction? ( Well, they’re not actually that mysterious. In fact, they’re pretty simple once you understand them.

An abstract method is just a fancy way of saying “this method doesn’t have any implementation yet.” It’s like when your boss tells you to write a report but hasn’t given you any details on what the report should be about or how it should look. You know there’s going to be some work involved, but you don’t really know where to start.

In Python, we use the `abc` module (which stands for “abstract base classes”) to create abstract methods. Here’s an example:

# Import the ABC (abstract base classes) module from the standard library
from abc import ABC, abstractmethod

# Create an abstract class called Animal that inherits from the ABC class
class Animal(ABC):
    # Define an abstract method called make_sound that must be implemented by subclasses
    @abstractmethod
    def make_sound(self):
        # The pass keyword is used as a placeholder for the method body
        pass

# Create a subclass of Animal called Dog
class Dog(Animal):
    # Define the make_sound method for Dog, which overrides the abstract method from the parent class
    def make_sound(self):
        # Return the string "woof!" when the method is called
        return "woof!"

# Create another subclass of Animal called Cat
class Cat(Animal):
    # Define the make_sound method for Cat, which also overrides the abstract method from the parent class
    def make_sound(self):
        # Return the string "meow!" when the method is called
        return "meow!"

In this example, we’ve created an abstract class called `Animal`. This class has one method called `make_sound`, which is declared as an abstract method using the `@abstractmethod` decorator.

This means that any subclass of `Animal` (like `Dog` and `Cat`) must implement their own version of the `make_sound` method, or they won’t be able to create instances of those classes. If you try to instantiate an abstract class directly, Python will raise a `TypeError`.

So why would we use abstract methods in the first place? Well, there are a few reasons:

1. Encapsulation By defining abstract methods, we can hide implementation details from other parts of our code. This helps us maintain encapsulation and keep our classes more modular.

2. Polymorphism Abstract methods allow us to create multiple subclasses that all have a common interface (i.e., the `make_sound` method). This makes it easier to write generic functions or methods that can work with any type of animal, without having to worry about how each specific animal makes its sound.

3. Code reuse By defining abstract classes and methods, we can create a base class for all animals (or whatever other concept we’re working on), which can be extended by multiple subclasses. This helps us avoid duplicating code across different parts of our application.

Abstract methods in Python are not as scary as they might seem at first glance. They’re just a way to create more flexible and modular code, while also hiding implementation details from other parts of your program.