I sing the praises of lambda, my friend and savior!

[Clark C. Evans]

On Mon, Oct 11, 2004 at 10:54:05AM -0700, Jeff Shannon wrote:
| I don't agree.  I *still* have to stop and think every time I see a 
| lamba -- they parse completely differently in my mind than anything else 
| in Python does, and they confuse me every time.  Yes, defining a small 
| function requires two extra lines... but, y'know, it's not like my 
| editor is going to run out of paper.  And I find that a well-chosen 
| name, even for a single-use thing like this, greatly adds clarity.  To 
| my mind, calling this func_callback(), or some such descriptive name, 
| makes the intent *much* more clear than 'lambda' does.

I beg to differ; and I'm talking about _my_ code, not yours.

| Only when one is already familiar with lambdas.  I've gotten to the 
| point where I *can* understand them, but it's still a struggle.  It 
| seems to me that the benefits of having lambda are outweighed by the 
| fair amount of extra mental space that they use up.  It just strikes me 
| as too much of a special case to deserve special syntax that has 
| absolutely no parallel elsewhere in Python.

If you don't like lambda -- don't use it.   Just beacuse you are
unfamilar with a very helpful construct and are unwilling to learn
does not mean you should prevent others from continuing to enjoy 
one of the more pleasant aspects of Python.

Kind Regards,

Clark