Odd closure issue for generators

[Michele Simionato]

On Jun 5, 6:49 am, a... at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) wrote:
> In article <05937a34-5490-4b31-9f07-a319b44dd... at r33g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
> Michele Simionato  <michele.simion... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> >Actually, in Scheme one would have to fight to define
> >a list comprehension (more in general loops) working as
> >in Python: the natural definition works as the OP wants. See
> >http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=3D251156and the
> >comments below for the details.
>
> This URL isn't working for me, gives 500.

Anyway, the point is that to explain Python behavior with closures in
list/generator comprehension it is not enough to invoke
late bindings (Scheme has late bindings too but list comprehension
works differently). The crux is in the behavior of the for loop:
in Python there is a single scope and the loop variable is
*mutated* at each iteration, whereas in Scheme (or Haskell or any
other functional language) a new scope is generated at each
iteration and there is actually a new loop variable at each iteration:
no mutation is involved. Common Lisp works like Python. It is a design
decision which at the end comes down to personal preference and
different
languages make different choices with no clear cut winner (I
personally
prefer the more functional way).