[Python-ideas] Mitigating 'self.' Method Pollution

[David Mertz]

-1000

This looks like an absolutely terrible anti-feature.  It makes all code
less readable, and violates the principle of locality (albeit, `global` and
`nonlocal` can also be declared relatively far away from the use of those
scoped variables too).

On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 3:31 PM, Michael Hewitt <michael at hewitts.us> wrote:

> Last night I made a post to the neopythonic blog proposing a Python 3.x
> feature that Guido asked me to forward to this alias.  For the full
> background, see the link to my post below.  For brevity, I will simply
> submit the proposal here.  The specific problem I am addressing is the
> pollution of Python methods by 'self.' to reference fields.  Here is the
> proposal:
>
> The name of the first parameter to a method can be used to scope
> subsequent variable references similar to the behavior of 'global'.
>
>
> Here are some examples:
>
> class Foo:
>
> def method_a(self)
>
> self x # subsequent 'x' references are scoped to 'self'
>
> x = 5 # same as self.x = 5
>
> def method_b(this)
>
> this x, y # subsequent 'x' & 'y' refs are scoped to 'this'
>
> x = y # same as this.x = this.y
>
> def method_c(its)
>
> its.x = 5 # still works just like it used to
>
>
> This suggestion is fully backward compatible with existing Python code,
> but would eliminate the need to pollute future Python methods with copious
> 'self.' prefixes, thereby improving both readability and maintainabilty.
>
> Thank you for your consideration.
>
> Michael Hewitt
>
> Original Post:
> http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-explicit-self-has-to-stay.html
>
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