Securing a future for anonymous functions in Python

[Jeff Shannon]

Paul Rubin wrote:

> Jeff Shannon <jeff at ccvcorp.com> writes:
> 
>>It seems to me that in other, less-dynamic languages, lambdas are
>>significantly different from functions in that lambdas can be created
>>at runtime.
> 
> What languages are those, where you can create anonymous functions
> at runtime, but not named functions?!  That notion is very surprising
> to me.

Hm, I should have been more clear that I'm inferring this from things 
that others have said about lambdas in other languages; I'm sadly 
rather language-deficient (especially as regards *worthwhile* 
languages) myself.  This particular impression was formed from a 
recent-ish thread about lambdas....

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/messages/1719ff05118c4a71,7323f2271e54e62f,a77677a3b8ff554d,844e49bea4c53c0e,c126222f109b4a2d,b1c9627390ee2506,0b40192c36da8117,e3b7401c3cc07939,6eaa8c242ab01870,cfeff300631bd9f2?thread_id=3afee62f7ed7094b&mode=thread

(line-wrap's gonna mangle that, but it's all one line...)

Looking back, I see that I've mis-stated what I'd originally 
concluded, and that my original conclusion was a bit questionable to 
begin with.  In the referenced thread, it was the O.P.'s assertion 
that lambdas made higher-order and dynamic functions possible.  From 
this, I inferred (possibly incorrectly) a different relationship 
between functions and lambdas in other (static) languages than exists 
in Python.

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International