Attack a sacred Python Cow

[Terry Reedy]

Russ P. wrote:
> On Jul 27, 12:39 pm, Bruno Desthuilliers

> All I am suggesting is that the programmer have the option of
> replacing "self.member" with simply ".member", since the word "self"
> is arbitrary and unnecessary.

I presume you are proposing the opposite also, that ".member" would 
internally be expanded to "self.member".

As I said before, that, or something near like it (it is hard to exactly 
compare underspecified proposals) has be suggested and rejected, even if 
someone gave you not the exact reference.  For one thing, as Guido 
noted, a single . can be hard to see and easy to miss, depending on 
one's eyesight, environmental lighting, and exact display medium, 
including font.

I suspect Guido's other reasons have been covered, but I do not want 
misquote him.  I will leave you to search the pydev list archives.

 > Otherwise, everything would work *EXACTLY* the same as it does now.

If I understand you, that would mean that .attribute would raise
NameError: name 'self' is not defined
if used anywhere where 'self' was not defined.