What is the key difference between self in ruby and self in python

Question

What are the domains where ruby is preferred over python?

Answer 1

Ruby and Python are actually very different languages (although they do share many similarities) even if Ruby has a syntax that can be written to look like Python (with the inclusion of end keywords) ;-)

Ruby is message-based (it was heavily influenced by SmallTalk-80) and "messages" are sent to objects. Ruby supports an implicit receiver (explicitly known as self) for a given scope. In Ruby self is not a variable, but rather an expression that evaluates to the current object context.

Python is property-based (for lack of a better term I know) and is thus more similar to SELF and JavaScript as functions are executed directly (instead of messages being passed). Python has no self keyword and it is merely convention that self is used as the name of the first parameter of a method -- which is how Python passes around the current object context.