It seems that lots of people don't like having to prefix self. in front of instance variables when writing methods in Python. Of course, whenever someone suggests doing away with 'self' many people point to the scoping advantages that self brings. But I hadn't seen this proposal when I searched so I thought I'd throw it out there. Maybe it's already been thrown out but I like it.
The issue I have with self. is that is makes the code larger and more complicated than it needs to be. Especially in math expressions like: self.position[0] = self.startx + len(self.bitlist) * self.bitwidth It really makes the code harder to read. On the other hand, eliminating the self. would create other issues including readability with regards to which vars are instance vars and which come from somewhere else. But what if we keep the '.' and leave out the self. Then the example looks like: .position[0] = .startx + len(.bitlist) * .bitwidth The 'self' is implied but the scoping rules don't change and it's still clear when reading it that they are instance variables. We can keep the self in the method header (or not) but that is really a separate issue. Any comments? Has this been discussed before? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
