Quoting r <rt8...@gmail.com>: > I noticed when i mentioned "self" nobody wants to touch that subject. > There could be many reasons why... > > 0.) nobody but the 10 regulars i see here exists > 1.) nobody cares(doubt it) > 2.) nobody is brave enough to question it(maybe) > 3.) most people like to type self over and over again(doubt it) > 4.) most people here have given up on changing the BDFL's mind about > it. (good possibility) > 5.) this is a hot-button topic(no doubt in my mind!)
You forgot 6.) it is the best, cleanest, most consistent and extensible way to do it. > This was the reason for using indention over the bracket plague in > python. REDUNDANCY!!! Why not dump self and make the language cleaner. > I love python's classes, but HATE self.redundant! This really needs to > be fixed, and you have not heard the last from me about it!!! Do you also hate cls.redundant on a classmethod? Would you rather type 'self' even when it is referring to a class? Would you like to resort to a hack, like C#3.0's 'this' explicit argument, when monkey-patching? I used to hate 'self'. Then I met classmethods, metaclasses and decorators, and the 'new'/'types' modules. It's just one of those examples where Guido's time machine works flawlessly. > 3000 would have been the perfect time to dump self and really clean up > the language, and it's not too late, dawn is not upon us yet. No need to wait for python 3000. You can have a 'selfless metaclass' right now: http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/articles/metaclasses.shtml (BTW, I really hope you are complaining about the explicit self on the argument list, and not about the 'self.' prefix - if that were the case, what magic would you propose for the compiler to guess when you are referring to locals, globals, class or instance variables?) -- Luis Zarrabeitia Facultad de Matemática y Computación, UH http://profesores.matcom.uh.cu/~kyrie -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list