Replacement for lambda - 'def' as an expression?

[Paul Rubin]

"Terry Reedy" <tjreedy at udel.edu> writes:
> Are you claiming that including a reference to the more humanly readable 
> representation of a function (its source code) somehow detracts from the 
> beauty of the function concept?

Huh?  Anonymous functions mean you can use functions as values by
spelling out their source code directly, instead of having to make a
separate reference and then pass that.  There are times when the
separate reference is just clutter.  It's less readable, not more readable.

> Or are you claiming that binding a 
> function to a name rather than some other access reference (like a list 
> slot) somehow detracts from its conceptual beauty?  Is so, would you say 
> the same about numbers?

Yes, I would say the same about numbers; Python would suffer if users
were required to give a name to every number.  I'd say

  x = f(1, 3)

is much less ugly than
 
  one = 1
  three = 3
  x = f(one, three)

I further don't see how the second example is more "readable" than the first.