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Python

Posted by Luca Vicini
Luca Vicini
Courses Plus Student 8,594 Points

Self as an argument

In all methods that we define within a class we use the argument self. Why did the language designers decided to declare it explicitly instead of having it defined by default implicitly?

2 Answers

Jeffrey James
Jeffrey James
2,636 Points

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68282/why-do-you-need-explicitly-have-the-self-argument-into-a-python-method

(note the comment about Guido, who invented python)

Believe it mainly relates to clarity around instance vs static methods.

Python is also an explicit language which emphasizes one true way to do things. If you've ever written a language like javascript where there are at least 10 ways to do a single thing, sometimes it seems like you are learning 10 languages. (end rant)

Luca Vicini
PLUS
Luca Vicini
Courses Plus Student 8,594 Points
Luca Vicini
Luca Vicini
Courses Plus Student 8,594 Points

Hi Jeffrey and thanks for your answer. I read Guido Van Rossum's blog post and I now understand the overall reasons (even though my present knowledge of the language doesn't allow me to understand all the subtleties). I love Python. Like you I don't have a great sympathy for JavaScript. <rant>What annoys me the most in JS are these seemingly unpredictable wild type conversions. Cannot wait for WebAssembly</rant>

Jeffrey James
Jeffrey James
2,636 Points

Right on. I write python everyday for data analytics stuff and 99% of the time never use classes (outside of trying to debug API issues with various 3rd party modules or packages), fwiw. Good rant tag