Question regarding a recent article on informit.com

[Ben S]

An article called "Examining Python 2.3: New Additions" on
www.informit.com had the following to say:

"Python now includes iterators, generators, list comprehensions, nested
scopes, type unification-and complete Unicode compatibility. The older
functional programming style constructs, such as map, filter, reduce,
and lambda are deprecated, even if it's unlikely that they will
disappear. "

Is this second sentence true, or is that just an opinion from someone
who favours the imperative style to the functional style? What else
could have been meant by this?

--
Ben Sizer
http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/kylotan