[core] Add some services to get properties and configurations of object
get rid of super(self.__class__)

Explicitly refer to the parent class name.

`super(self.__class__, self)` lead to infinite recursion in child
classes, in case of more than one child.

Fix #255
get rid of all other super()

Explicitly write the parent class name, to be consistent with the
previous commit.
Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/master'