Re:In Memoriam: Tim Peters 1952–2026
by zahlman on Friday November 13, 2026 @11:40AM
(#50486037)
> The joke is that people wanting to write Python like Java - with an implicit reference to an object's instance - would attempt to import Java's `this` keyword.
No, that isn't where the name comes from; the slogan "import this" was chosen for Python in a contest, and the decision was made to stuff the Zen there because it was also importable code. There's no record of who submitted this slogan or what the motivation was. And I certainly never heard of anyone trying to get a `this` keyword by importing an ordinary module; that would make no sense (the closest reasonable spelling would be something like `from __future__ import this_keyword`).
No, that isn't where the name comes from; the slogan "import this" was chosen for Python in a contest, and the decision was made to stuff the Zen there because it was also importable code. There's no record of who submitted this slogan or what the motivation was. And I certainly never heard of anyone trying to get a `this` keyword by importing an ordinary module; that would make no sense (the closest reasonable spelling would be something like `from __future__ import this_keyword`).
https://discuss.python.org/t/in-memoriam-tim-peters-1952-202...