All this self dot is making me...
Michael P. Reilly
arcege at shore.net
Wed Jun 2 11:12:04 EDT 1999
Kevin Dahlhausen <morse at harborcom.net> wrote:
:>Calling this parameter "self" is just convention, you can use whatever
:>you like. However, it's a convention that just about everybody follows,
:>so I'd think twice before doing something different.
: A couple of options come to mind:
: Or call it something short - s. ? - and use a (careful) global search and
: replace when you're done with the coding. I sometimes use this
: for long identifiers.
: Or in VIM set up a mapping:
: :map! s. self.
I think abbreviations would be better:
:abbrev s. self.
The convention is to use "self". It was the adoption of the original
object-oriented language (SmallTalk) in the early '70s. Why did C++
change it to "this"? I don't know.. probably just to be different.
People who are very well-versed in Python (Guido, Timbot, etc.)
probably wouldn't have a problem if someone used something other than
"self", but the average user might not.
Also from a psychological view, it might be better to start using
"self" instead of "this" to get your out of the "C++" thinking and into
a Python mode.. at least when you are programming in Python. :)
-Arcege
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