Objects should send themselves as first argument to any signal

[Shadowblitz16]

Describe the project you are working on

A spaceship game

Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project

I need a way to get the object the signal happened on without having to manually bind a nodepath each time

Describe the feature / enhancement and how it helps to overcome the problem or limitation

signals would just be redefined as signal(args...) to signal(sender:<SelfObjectTypeHere>, args...)
they would be statically typed it the background but using the static typing in the callback signature would be optional

Describe how your proposal will work, with code, pseudo-code, mock-ups, and/or diagrams

# Node

signal do_something

do_something.connect(_on_do_something)
do_something.emit()

# sender is automatically passed in
func _on_do_something(sender:Node)->void:
  pass

# Node2D

signal do_something
do_something.connect(_on_do_something)
do_something.connect(_on_do_something2)
do_something.emit()

# sender is automatically passed in
func _on_do_something(sender:Node2D)->void:
  pass

# error! signal must accept first argument as type self
func _on_do_something2()->void:
  pass

If this enhancement will not be used often, can it be worked around with a few lines of script?

It can be worked around but it requires awkwardly binding a additional argument when signals should already carry that info.

Is there a reason why this should be core and not an add-on in the asset library?

It improves the godot messaging system

[Calinou]

Doing this by default would break compatibility with existing projects, as the number of arguments would change for all signal functions (and you can't have a mismatch).

[YuriSizov]

It can be worked around but it requires awkwardly binding a additional argument when signals should already carry that info.

In Godot signals normally don't carry any information that you can get otherwise. Binding the node that you already have a reference to is the correct and expected way. Same goes for any other information that you can determine at connect or at emit time without extra arguments. So your suggestion goes against the design principle of the engine.

[KoBeWi]

godotengine/godot#60143 implements this as optional flag, which is much better solution.