a +b ?

[alex23]

Steven D'Aprano <st... at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> Perhaps you need to spend some more time helping beginners then, and less
> time hanging around Lisp gurus *wink*

I've never used map/reduce outside of Python, this is where I first
encountered it. And I _have_ worked in organisations alongside new
Python coders. That it's easy enough to express both map & reduce in
Python code helped a lot with explaining them.

> I'm certainly not saying that people should avoid higher-order functional
> code, but merely to remember that map and filter aren't introductory
> concepts, they're moderately advanced functions that many people find
> difficult.

And I'm saying that I hope that most people who are professional
developers are capable of learning such advanced functionality, which
they will never do if there are no effective examples for them from
which to learn. I'm not sure why Python's handling of functions is
seen as any more complex than the way it treats everything as first-
class objects. I fear that not encouraging people to explore this
aspect does limit the language's power for them somewhat.

>From both Ben & your posts I'm worried that I'm being seen as having
contempt for (at least certain classes of) other developers, when it's
really intended as the contrary.