is Python fully object oriented ?

[Nick Trout]

> I know it breaks the rule of "Explicit is better than implicit" but this
> ought to to be an exception as it is so commonly used. (And I so commonly
> make the mistake of forgetting it ;-) )
>
> Is there a REALLY good reason that it has to be explicitly declared ?

New users constantly raise questions on this forum about Pythons language
features, e.g. "self" & colon at end of if and while etc. The point is, they
are just idiosyncrasies of the language. The FAQ points out that Guido used
self as it was path of least resistance when he added classes. It also has
the advantage of making the code less ambiguous. If "self", or any of these
features, bugs someone enough then there are plenty of other languages out
there (e.g. Ruby, Perl etc), so try another one (I hope you won't and this
is not a flame!). But, you have to ask yourself, why is the Python user base
growing so quickly? These are minor things! I personally thought it was a
pain when I started Python but now I think its an advantage. I am an
advocate of coding standards and I believe that this is a useful one.

Cheers,
Nick