Newbie: Functions and class

[KefX]

>class hittable(object):
>    def __init__(self):
>       self = [[], [], [], []]

Assignment to 'self' is never all that useful. You're just rebinding a
temporary object; this function is basically a no-op because the assignment to
'self' is discarded once the function exits. I know it's kind of confusing, but
you'll get used to the name binding rules before too long.

If you don't understand, it's the same reason this doesn't work:
x = 2
y = x
x = 3
if x == y:
  print 'Hewwo world'
  # Why doesn't this print?

The answer is that rebinding x doesn't rebind y, which is clearly a Good Thing
in genera as you can see by the example.

- Kef