better lambda support in the future?

[Fredrik Lundh]

Michael DeHaan wrote:

> True enough, but suppose you want a hash of anonymous functions as
> opposed to just a lexical?   This is where lambas are nice to have.
> Totally agreed about a small use here and there, but they do have some
> use in dispatch tables, as they are a lot easier to read sometimes
> than very long case statements.

standard pattern:

dispatch = {}

def handle_a(...):
    ...
dispatch["a"] = handle_a

def handle_b(...):
    ...
dispatch["b"] = handle_b

def handle_c(...):
    ...
dispatch["c"] = handle_c

if you cannot think of a suitable name for a given case, you can
name them all "case".  for further encapsulation, you can put this
in a class definition; dispatch will then become a dictionary con-
taining unbound methods.  if the case names all happen to be valid
Python literals, you can get rid of the dispatch dictionary, and use
getattr(self, "handle_" + case) to locate the right bound method (or
if speed is important, use dir() to preload a dispatch dictionary with
handlers).  etc.

</F>