Describe the Request

The Proxy class redefines common Python attributes (e.g., __module__) as properties such that their access can be forwarded to the proxy's target object.

This causes problems when external code needs to access those attributes on the Proxy class itself (i.e., not an instance of a Proxy). I don't yet have an idea in mind for fixing this, but long-term this would be a very useful thing to fix.

We could potentially try changing from the slots Proxy implementation to the lazy_object_proxy default (cext with fallback to simple).

This has caused some of the following errors:

1. Dask fails to serialized Proxy types:

   Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/home/jgpaul/workspace/proxystore-extensions/example.py", line 15, in <module>
       y = client.submit(sum, p)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/home/jgpaul/workspace/proxystore-extensions/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/distributed/client.py", line 1943, in submit
       key = funcname(func) + "-" + tokenize(func, kwargs, *args)
                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/home/jgpaul/workspace/proxystore-extensions/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/dask/base.py", line 964, in tokenize
       hasher = _md5(str(tuple(map(normalize_token, args))).encode())
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/home/jgpaul/workspace/proxystore-extensions/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/dask/utils.py", line 641, in __call__
       meth = self.dispatch(type(arg))
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/home/jgpaul/workspace/proxystore-extensions/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/dask/utils.py", line 626, in dispatch
       toplevel, _, _ = cls2.__module__.partition(".")
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   AttributeError: 'property' object has no attribute 'partition'
   

2. Calling help() on a module which imports Proxy fails:

   python -c "import proxystore.proxy as m; help(m)"
   Traceback (most recent call last):
     File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
     File "<frozen _sitebuiltins>", line 103, in __call__
     File "/usr/lib/python3.11/pydoc.py", line 2018, in __call__
       self.help(request)
     File "/usr/lib/python3.11/pydoc.py", line 2079, in help
       else: doc(request, 'Help on %s:', output=self._output, is_cli=is_cli)
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/usr/lib/python3.11/pydoc.py", line 1792, in doc
       pager(render_doc(thing, title, forceload))
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/usr/lib/python3.11/pydoc.py", line 1785, in render_doc
       return title % desc + '\n\n' + renderer.document(object, name)
                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/usr/lib/python3.11/pydoc.py", line 483, in document
       if inspect.ismodule(object): return self.docmodule(*args)
                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/usr/lib/python3.11/pydoc.py", line 1272, in docmodule
       inspect.getclasstree(classlist, 1), name)]
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/usr/lib/python3.11/inspect.py", line 1300, in getclasstree
       return walktree(roots, children, None)
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     File "/usr/lib/python3.11/inspect.py", line 1269, in walktree
       classes.sort(key=attrgetter('__module__', '__name__'))
   TypeError: '<' not supported between instances of 'str' and 'property'
   

Sample Code

No response