[Python-ideas] PEP: Shorthand Symbol for "self"

[Russ Paielli]

Just for fun, I made a copy of one of my Python files with hundreds of
occurrences of "self", and I replaced them all with "S". This streamlines
things significantly, and I think it looks good, but I suppose most Python
aficionados would be aghast. I'm thinking about doing it permanently for all
my files. I normally avoid single-character names, but I think this case
could be a reasonable exception. What would you think if you saw this in
"production" code?

--Russ


On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 3:35 AM, Brandon Mintern <bmintern at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 3:45 AM, Bruce Leban <bruce at leapyear.org> wrote:
> > Jim Jewett wrote:
> > On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 6:26 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> If m is an attribute of type(s) (which is s.__class__), this shrinkage
> is
> >> a convenient abbreviation, not a requirement.  The above calls are the
> same
> >> as
> >> type(s).m(s.a,b,z) or type(s).m(s,a,b).  Or, if you prefer,
> >> fn = type(s).m # or s.__class__.m
> >> fn(s,a,b,z)
> >> If m is an attribute s, and s in not a class, the shrinkage is not
> >> available, and one must write s.m(s,a,b,z) or s.m(s.a,b).
> >>
> >> Terry Jan Reedy
> >
> > If I could write:
> >
> >   class foo:
> >     def self.bar():
> >       self.rebar(self.babar)
> >
> > then the call to  object.bar() would match the declaration.
>
> +1. I like this proposal: it's clean and sensible, and I think it
> looks a lot more clear, especially to someone who is new to Python.
>
> > Back to Russ's proposal: it would be better accomodated IMHO by allowing
> $
> > as a character in a variable name, just like _ is. Then, conventionally,
> > people could use $ as self:
> >
> >   def $.bar():
> >     $.rebar($.babar)
> >
> > and for whatever it's worth, I find $.bar easier to read then $bar as the
> > explicit dot reminds me it's doing an attribute get rather than looking
> like
> > a special variable name.
>
> +1 I'm in agreement here as well. The closest I would get to
> supporting the $-for-self. proposal is allowing $ in variable names.
> Having used Lisp before Python, I'm used to just about any character
> being allowed in identifier names. The more characters available, the
> more expressive the names can be, and I think it could only help
> things. The overhead of people having to get used to new symbols being
> used in variable names would be small in comparison to the flexibility
> offered.
>
> Brandon
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-- 
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