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On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 3:27 AM, Sven Olsen <sven2718@gmail.com> wrote:
> As someone with a C++ background, the need to do explicit self-prefixing in
> lua has always bothered me, and getting rid of it makes the language feel
> much "cleaner".

i too have a like for C and C++ [*], and when i find a new language
with OOP constructs, one of the first things i check is if i have to
type 'self' or if it is implicit.

until a few years ago, i thought having explicit 'self' was a
drawback; but recently i did some work in C++, where i had to read
lots of existing code, and found that i had to repeatedly check  if a
variable was local, global, or member.  soon i was wishing that C++
enforced an explicit  'this->'

IOW: it's just habit, and it can enhance readability.

(also, if you really don't like to type 'self', you could just add
"_ENV=self" at the top of your functions, no need to break Lua)


[*] personally, i think for code-aesthetics, Lua and plain C
comfortably share the top of my ranking, with C++ and Python fighting
for second place. Scheme R5RS was nice too, but R6 went downwards
quickly  (Go seems to be on the race too, but i have to get in peace
with some idioms)

-- 
Javier