I was working on a C code base with classes, inheritance, and polymorphism, all done by hands and macros.

Something like

typedef struct s_some_class {
    void (*method)(this *s_some_class);
} t_some_class;

Overall, learning C was the best enabler in my whole career. For instance I was learning Python by tinkering with CPython VM, so when I see these ‘WAT’ quircks I know exactly what’s up.

Sweet dreams are made of this

In Python, self is not a keyword, it’s a conventional variable name. You can replace all instances of “self” with “this” and your code will work the same.

Partially unrelated to the meme, but I find it almost malicious how some python keywords are named differently from the nearly universal counterpart of other languagues.

This/self, continue/pass, catch/except and they couldn't find a different word for switch so they just didn't implement it.

It's as if the original designers purposefully wanted to be different for the sake of it.

Alternative image for C: Mr. Incredible: "A PARAMETER IS A PARAMETER!"

TBF the last two bullet points are verbose descriptions of the thing it means in C++, Java, and Python too. It's just that in JS, "this" can also be used in other places.

But yeah, in practice, every time I write JS I want to throw my hands in the air and shout "this is bullshit", but never know what "this" refers to... :D

Rust: Borrow handler got mad at you for asking

(I'd assume)

My JS:

Ah, you mean that?

In Python you can use this as a variable name

The last bullet point is not really that common anymore.