I've been a Python instructor for 5+ years and I've never taught to my students that __init__ is not a constructor. That is I teach that __init__ works just like a constructor.

Sure technically (the best type of correct) it is not a constructor.

Where would this be important? Maybe it could be taught as part of "language lawyer" course.

I teach OOP around lesson 10. Each lesson is about 2hours.

Complete beginnners to programming are able create basic classes and even inheritance.

Some people like OOP some stick with imperative style. Some migrate to more functional style (which I personally advocate).

Going through this old thread: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6578487/init-as-a-constr... puts me firmly into "this is hair-spliting" camp.