[Tutor] Why is the name "self" optional instead of mandatory?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 09:42:29PM -0600, boB Stepp wrote:

> So I really only have one question:  Why not make Python's
> *traditional* name, "self", mandatory?  Why give the programmer this
> kind of choice?  [OK, that was two questions.]

Why bother making it mandatory? That just makes more work for the 
compiler -- it has to decide that a function is inside a class, and 
therefore apply a restriction to the first argument. Most of the time, 
giving the programmer more freedom is less work.

And what happens if you do this?

class X:
    pass

def func(this):
    print("instance %r called method" % this)

X.method = func

And what are we supposed to do with classmethods and staticmethods? They 
shouldn't take a "self" argument at all, but they start off life as a 
regular function, just like ordinary instance methods.

And of course, there are Metaclasses. You might need a metaclass method 
that needs to deal with all three levels of the hierarchy: the 
metaclass, the class it creates, and the instance of that class.

class Meta(type):
    def metamethod(meta, cls, self):
        ...



-- 
Steve