From: Kent Dahl <kentda@...>
Date: 2002-04-04T05:50:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Understanding Python

"Dr. David Mertz" wrote:
> Some of the other criticisms are a bit misguided too.  For example, the
> widespread upset at significant indentation vanishes from 99% of Python
> users after a few days/weeks of actual usage.  Almost all of those folks
> wind up thinking of the indentation as a feature.  But that's largely a
> matter of taste (with which there is no arguing :-)).

Hey, wadda ya know? I'm in the One-In-A-Hundred club ;-P

> The self thing, however, is worth an explicit explanation.  The point of
> the explicit self is that it allows detaching a method from an instance,
> and passing a different instance to the same method.  In the simple case
> this is sorta pointless:

Good point. This sounds like what the proposed(?) UnboundedMethod class
is meant to address.

But, as far as it being a feature, it reminds me of one of the repeated
design decisions of C++: "Don't pay for what you don't use." And since I
have to write self _every_ time I define an instance method (which is
what I should be writing if I'm doing OO), it keeps getting in my face.
I pay for something I do not use. Not in execution efficiency, but in
keystrokes, readability and to a lesser extent, agravation.

-- 
(\[ Kent Dahl ]/)_    _~_    __[ http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~kentda/ ]___/~
 ))\_student_/((  \__d L b__/  NTNU - graduate engineering - 4. year  )
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