Steve Holden wrote: > Fernando M. wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> i was just wondering about the need to put "self" as the first >> parameter in every method a class has because, if it's always needed, >> why the obligation to write it? couldn't it be implicit? >> >> Or is it a special reason for this being this way? >> >> Thanks.
One reason is because of the dynamic nature of Python classes. You can attach new methods to a class after it is instantiated, or remove methods. The language boo (http://boo.codehaus.org/) has classes defined at compile time, and there "self" is not needed at all. If you want to use the duck typing features in boo, however, and re-implement python-like dynamic classes that can have methods removed or added at any time, then your methods need some kind of "self" parameter so they can access the context of their class instance, because really there is no special relationship between the methods and the class unless you explicitly specify it. > The reason can be found in the output from the python statement "import > this". Explicit is better than implicit. Like those invisible yet explicit scope indicators, tabs and spaces. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
