init and self in python

Question

When we define a method such as :

def method(self, blah):
    def __init__(?):

What is the use of self and __init__ ? are they mandatory? 

Answer 1

The self variable represents an instance of the object itself. while most object oriented languages pass this as a hidden parameter, it is declared explicitly in python.

The __init__ method is basically a constructor in Python. it creates an object and passes as the first parameter to the __init__ method.