Self, the instance

For a long time I never understood why I was placing self into functions.

I did it because it worked but I just never understood why. I knew the function would give me instances and I understood what an instance was.

During my deep diving in Python something sparked that I really need to understand why I was adding in self to a function. It wasn't until I was creating a simple employee function that built a list of employees that it sank in.

Forget all the detailed information of what is required for an employee record and focusing on just one attribute, first_name, the example function is

def employee(self, first_name):

self.first_name = first_name

Adding employees.

employee1 = employee(Jim)

employee2 = employee(John)

'employee1' is the self attribute and 'Jim' the first_name

'employee2' is the self attribute and 'John' the first_name

self is used the attribute for the instance symbol.