While I understand self-identifiers in F#, I am puzzled as to the benefits of such flexibility. Why does F# not just support this.Blah as C# does and be done with it? I'm guessing some people use it to improve readability, but even that seems a stretch. So, what are the uses/benefits of this language feature?
For the un-initiated, below is an example that defines a type-wide self identifier "self" and a method scoped identifier "this". The example is taken from the MSDN article linked above.
type MyClass2(dataIn) as self =
let data = dataIn
do
self.PrintMessage()
member this.PrintMessage() =
printf "Creating MyClass2 with Data %d" data
One small advantage is that you can use them to differentiate an object expression's this from that of the type which has created it:
type IExample = abstract GetAnObject : unit -> obj
type MyClass() =
member outer.Example1 = { new IExample with member inner.GetAnObject() = upcast inner }
member outer.Example2 = { new IExample with member inner.GetAnObject() = upcast outer }
A potential philosophical reason is that it makes it seem like the this reference is not too different from any other argument. If you should be able to name the other arguments (instead of being forced to use arg1, arg2, etc.), then why shouldn't you be able to name the first argument as you please, too?