The use of "this" in every MATLAB class

Question

Why is that in every class in MATLAB I must use "this"? I think that in C++ I don't need to use "this", only if I want to. Is this also the case in MATLAB?

Answer 1

In short, you must use some kind of explicit reference.

First of all, unlike in C++/C#/Java where it is named this, you can use any name you want. The reason that you must use explicit calls is Matlab designers decision. The idea was to support Matlab vector operations on objects, as if they are structs. The following is a fragment from the link above:

While languages with an implicit object parameter provide a "this" keyword to access the implicit object, they usually do not require you to access a property through "this". If MATLAB had implicit properties, the logical extension to array-based objects would be to index into nothing:
S = S + (k).Value;

Edit: Following the good comment of @AndrewJanke, I would like to add that MATLAB could have had this as implicit reference, and only force to use it in indexing of array-based objects. Nevertheless, this approach was not chosen by MATLAB designers.