Why 'self' ?

[brueckd at tbye.com]

On Wed, 31 Oct 2001, Steven D. Majewski wrote:

> I'm sure there are a lot of redundancies we can eliminate from
> Python, but rather than looking for them piecemeal, I would
> rather start fresh with a more effecient plan:
>
> [1] Enumerate all possible computer programs.
> [2] Label each one with an integer.
> [3] Use that integer to represent the program.

Hey, I remember that from my CS days and it was called the S-language
(although I think there's something else called the S-language that isn't
related to this). All programs can be represented by a series of (I think)
4 instructions. Given any positive integer you can figure out the
S-program represented by that integer (I seem to remember the first
associated homework assignment was to figure out what the S-program was
for your U.S. social security number and then whether or not the program
did anything).

I'm gonna go home and dig out my old CS books... :-)

-Dave