Attack a sacred Python Cow

[Fuzzyman]

On Jul 24, 6:41 am, Jordan <jordanrastr... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm a big Python fan who used to be involved semi regularly in
> comp.lang.python (lots of lurking, occasional posting) but kind of
> trailed off a bit. I just wrote a frustration inspired rant on my
> blog, and I thought it was relevant enough as a wider issue to the
> Python community to post here for your discussion and consideration.
>
> This is not flamebait. I love Python, and I'm not out to antagonise
> the community. I also realise that one of the issues I raise is way
> too ingrained to be changed now. I'd just like to share my thinking on
> a misstep in Python's guiding principles that has done more harm than
> good IMO. So anyway, here's the post.
>
> I've become utterly convinced that at least one criticism leveled at
> my favourite overall programming language, Python, is utterly true and
> fair. After quite a while away from writing Python code, I started
> last night on a whim to knock up some code for a prototype of an idea
> I once had. It's going swimmingly; the Python Image Library, which I'd
> never used before, seems quick, intuitive, and with the all the
> features I need for this project. As for Python itself, well, my heart
> still belongs to whitespace delimitation. All the basics of Python
> coding are there in my mind like I never stopped using them, or like
> I've been programming in this language for 10 years.
>
> Except when it comes to Classes. I added some classes to code that had
> previously just been functions, and you know what I did - or rather,
> forgot to do? Put in the 'self'. In front of some of the variable
> accesses, but more noticably, at the start of *every single method
> argument list.* This cannot be any longer blamed as a hangover from
> Java - I've written a ton more code, more recently in Python than in
> Java or any other OO language. What's more, every time I go back to
> Python after a break of more than about a week or so, I start making
> this 'mistake' again. The perennial justification for this 'feature'
> of the language? That old Python favourite, "Explicit is better than
> implicit."
>


It's damn useful for scoping. You can look in the body of your method
and tell whether you are accessing local variables or instance
variables.

I'm a great fan of self and I'm afraid you're flogging a dead horse on
that one.

Your point about rich comparison (at least the == != problem) is fair.
This one is fixed in Python 3 though I believe.

Michael Foord
--
http://www.ironpythoninaction.com/