Why do pythonistas call the current reference "self" and not "this"?
<p>Python is the language I know the most, and strangely I still don't know why I'm typing "self" and not "this" like in Java or PHP.</p>

<p>I know that Python is older than Java, but I can't figure out where does this come from. Especially since you can use any name instead of "self": the program will work fine.</p>

<p>So where does this convention come from?</p>
