Question

From what I understand about self, it refers to the current instance of the class.

Isn’t this the default behaviour at all times anyways? For example, isn’t

self.var_one = method(args)

equivalent to

var_one = method(args) 

If so, what is the use of self?

Answer 1

In most cases self.foo is indeed redundant because you can just write foo for the same effect, but in this case it is not and the self is required.

var_one = method(args) will create a local variable called var_one, it will not call any method or do anything else to self.

self.var_one = method(args) will call the method var_one= on self with the argument method(args).

Another case where the use of self is non-optional would be if you want to pass it as an argument to a method, i.e. some_method(self) – you can’t do that without the self keyword.