Home Original page

why python annoys me

Delaney, Timothy tdelaney at avaya.com
Wed Apr 18 20:11:44 EDT 2001 
> I disagree. In Smalltalk, which is one of the oldest OO languages, the
> object being dealt with is always referred-to as "self". Even in a
> natural language, the actor always refers to the subject of an action,
> even if the subject is the actor ("I understand this", not "Understand
> this").

This is not actually true. To take your exact example in Portuguese, it is
equally valid and common to say "Entendo" (understand) as "Eu entendo" (I
understand) as the verb conjugation tells you who is being talked about. The
subject in that case becomes implicit.

In *English* the actor always refers to the subject as most verb
conjugations (what few there are ;) do not imply the subject.

However, even in Portuguese, many people prefer to specify the subject ...
explicit is better than implicit :)

Tim Delaney
More information about the Python-list mailing list