redefinition of unused function

[Gribouillis]

There is no overloading in python as there is in C++ for example.

Usually one uses a different name instead of overloading

class A:
    def do_work(self, obj):
        print('A.do_work:', obj)
        
    def do_work_by_name(self, name):
        print('A.do_work_by_name:', name)
        self.do_work([name])
        
a = A()
x = object()
a.do_work(x)
a.do_work_by_name('spam')

"""O utput:
A.do_work: <object object at 0x7f63f51cb0a0>
A.do_work_by_name: spam
A.do_work: ['spam']
"""

On the other hand we can override functions, especially in subclasses:

class B(A):
    def do_work(self, name):
        print('B.do_work:', name)
        obj = [name]
        A.do_work(self, obj) # or super().do_work(obj)
        
b = B()
b.do_work('eggs')
""" Output:
B.do_work: eggs
A.do_work: ['eggs']
"""

If you really want automatic selection on the type of the argument, you can write it yourself

class D(A):
    def do_work(self, arg):
        print('D.do_work:', arg)
        if isinstance(arg, str):
            obj = [arg]
        else:
            obj = arg
        super().do_work(obj)
        
d = D()
d.do_work('eggs')
""" Output:
D.do_work: eggs
A.do_work: ['eggs']
"""

It is not usually considered very good code however.

For ordinary functions (as opposed to instance methods), there is a selection mechanism on the type of the first argument: see functools.singledispatch(). This allows one to implement generic functions in python.