Deprecate self

[Harry George]

In Modula-3, I think "self" is not reserved -- you can use other names
for the first arg.  Further, you can call the method as a standalone
function or procedure as long as you supply the arg directly.  I do
(did) this regularly in Modula-3 in conjunction with partial
revelation.  It even seems to work in python:


    #method signature:
    def from_tadef(self,fileobj,style="tadef")

    #usage:
    t=Tadef_File()
    #---method calls---
    t.from_tadef(filename)
    t.to_tadef(filename+".out")
    #---function calls---
    Tadef_File.from_tadef(t,filename)
    Tadef_File.to_tadef(t,filename+".out")

Obviously, in the standalone mode, you cannot rely on an implied
"self" -- it is just another argument.
 

piet at cs.uu.nl writes:

> >>>>> "Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com> (AM) writes:
> 
> AM> "Dave LeBlanc" <whisper at oz.net> wrote in message
> AM> news:9bji5k$417$0 at 216.39.170.247...
> >> Since self is used for every method of every class, isn't it a bit
> >> redundant?
> 
> AM> Not really.  Explicit is better than implicit.
> 
> >> I don't know of another OO language that makes you manually
> >> carry around the "this"/"self" pointer/reference...
> 
> AM> Modula-3, for example (I believe 'self' is a reserved word
> AM> there; in Python, it's "just" a 'universal' convention).
> 
> And Corbascript/IDLscript, which heavily borrowed concepts from Python
> -- 
> Piet van Oostrum <piet at cs.uu.nl>
> URL: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~piet [PGP]
> Private email: P.van.Oostrum at hccnet.nl

-- 
Harry George                E-mail:  harry.g.george at boeing.com
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