On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 16:34:56 -0800, Erik Max Francis wrote: > `$` as a shortcut for self, on the other hand, gives absolutely no > mnemonic indication what it stands for, and users would be simply left > guessing.
However, $ is sometimes used as an alternative way of writing S̸ (I've attempted to write here S followed by U+0338 COMBINING LONG SOLIDUS OVERLAY, in order to produce an S with a stroke through it). This is the symbol of the "barred subject" in Lacanian psychoanalysis, which is the Lacanian symbol for the concept of the "self" (see http://nosubject.com/Bar ). So, if we want Python to the programming language of choice for Lacanian psychoanalysts, perhaps we should adopt the symbol "$" (or even, with Python 3's support for unicode identifiers, S followed by U+0388) instead of "self." -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
