Securing a future for anonymous functions in Python

[Jacek Generowicz]

"Anna" <annaraven at gmail.com> writes:

> Having taken some calculus (derivatives, limits, some integrals) but
> never even heard of lambda calculus, to me, lambda means absolutely
> NOTHING. Less than nothing.

And before you took calculus, the chances are that derivatives, limits
and integrals meant less than nothing to you.

But now, I am quite sure, you know that in Python lambda is a keyword
which creates anonymous functions. Now that you know what lambda does,
what's the problem with it? (It certainly doesn't mean "Less than
nothing" to you now.)

> So, I guess I don't like the word itself

Fair enough. I guess there are people out there who might have a
distaste for the word "class" or "def" or any of the other words which
are keywords in Python.

> Every other word in Python has an obvious meaning.  lambda doesn't.

Obvious to whom?

The meaning of every word is obvious, once you have been taught it;
and a complete mystery if you have not.

What do you make of "seq[2:-2]"? It means "less than nothing" to the
uninitiated. Just like lambda.

Getting students in my Python courses to understand "seq[2:-2]" takes
about as much (maybe even a bit more) effort as getting them to
understand lambda[*]. But once they have been taught these features,
they can handle them just fine.


[*] Funnily enough, getting them to understand that "lambda x: fn(x)"
    is just a very silly way of writing "fn", can be quite a struggle
    at times ... but that's probably a consequence of the context in
    which lambda is introduced.