On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 11:57:44 AM UTC-5, Laura Creighton wrote: > In a message of Tue, 26 May 2015 09:37:29 -0700, zipher writes: > >Would it be prudent to rid the long-standing "argument" (pun unintended) > >about self and the ulterior spellings of it, by changing it into a symbol > >rather than a name?
> >class MyClass(object): > > > > def __init__(@): > > @.dummy = None > > > >OR, even better, getting *rid of it* in the parameter list, so it stops > >confusing people about how many parameters a method needs, and transform it > >into a true *operator*. > > > >class MyClass(object): > > > > def __init__(): #takes no arguments! > > @.dummy = None #the @ invokes the class object's dictionary > > > >That would seem to be a nice solution to the problem, really. It doesn't > >become PERLish because you've made it into a genuine operator -- "self" was > >always a non-variable that looked like a variable and hence created an itch > >that couldn't be scratched. > > Guido did. :) > http://neopythonic.blogspot.se/2008/10/why-explicit-self-has-to-stay.html Sweet link. I see now that my confusion surrounds the mistaken notion that Python is lexing python source into *abstract syntax trees* (wikipedia describes nicely), so that code inside a method knows what class it's in. But GvR hasn't defined his language to the extent where the notion of "object" even exists. He's only set aside a keyword called "class". So of course he has to treat the method code, practically, like a [C] function. But that limits the language, not to define what an object is inside the lexical structure: object ::= "class" identifier "(" inheritence_list ")" ":" inheritence_list ::= [[et cetera]] If he did this, then code inside the class could already know what class they're in and all the objections in Laura's link would be moot. Mark J -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
