Explanation of this Python language feature? [x for x in x for x in x] (to flatten a nested list)

[Ian Kelly]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 3:43 PM, Mark H Harris <harrismh777 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/24/14 4:03 AM, Ian Kelly wrote:
>>
>>
>> The difference does not really lie in the lambda construct per se but in
>> the binding style of closures. Functional languages tend to go one way
>> here; imperative languages tend to go the other. {snip}
>
>
>> The result may be more surprising to users accustomed to functional
>> languages, but I claim that it is *less* surprising to users of other
>> imperative languages.
>
>
>    Aside from the sin of spelling out "lambda,"
>       should be   ( \x y -> x + y ) a b )  but, neither here nor there...

Well no, it *should* be λx y . x + y but apparently some people don't
have that character on their keyboards, so it gets written as lambda
or \ instead.  Personally I dislike the \ style; it doesn't really
resemble a λ that closely, and to me the backslash denotes escape
sequences and set differences.  Nor is Python alone in spelling out
lambda: Scheme and Common Lisp spell it the same way. As far as I know
the \ for λ is unique to Haskell.