Why functional Python matters

[Matthew Danish]

On Thu, Apr 17, 2003 at 02:49:33PM +0000, Steve Holden wrote:
> I can see that, but wouldn't you agree that removing redundant features also
> removes cruft from the source, and eases the maintenance burden, in turn
> reducing the likelihood of implementation bugs? While Guido is known to
> regret the inclusion of lambda in Python, I don't think he would want to
> take it out on purely ideological grounds. Indeed, the suggestion was not so
> much that it would be taken out of the existing language, rather that it
> would not be implemented in some "futurePython", normally called Python 3 or
> Python 3000.
> 
> It would be nice to have One True Python, but that's about as likely as One
> True Lisp. The Python world is pragmatic enough to be able to live with "one
> *most obvious* way to do it", but if there are two similar features in the
> language they have to be maintained in lockstep as the language develops.

What's wrong with Python and CL!!!?  They have all these extraneous
features which can accomplish the same thing!!! All you need is the
<insert model of computability here>!!! Anything else is liable to
develop cruft and cause bugs in the single implementation of our ONE
PURE LANGUAGE!!!  I can't believe that people might want to model
problems any other way!!!

-- 
; Matthew Danish <mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu>
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