[Doc-SIG] First draft of Functional HOWTO

[Leandro Lameiro]

Hello amk.

I've a few comments to your Functional Programming HOWTO.
It is only a few typos, the text is really good.

Here it goes:

1 - In the code sample below the text
"You can figure it out, but it takes time" ...
there is:

def combine (a, b):
    return 0, a[1] + b[1]

return reduce(combine_freq, items)[1]

the first parameter to reduce should read combine, not combine_freq
(or the def combine should read def combine_freq), right?

2 - At Small functions and the lambda statement section:

"Which alternative is preferable? That's a style question; my general
view is to avoid it."
I'm not a native english speaker, but, avoiding what? The style
question, the def or the lambda?

3 - Below Fredrik Lundh comments about refactoring lambdas:
"I really like these rules, but you're free todisagree that this style
is better."
to disagree. there is a blank space missing.

4 - in the first code sample of the same section:
"
stripped_lines = [line.strip for line in lines]
existing_files = filter(os.path.exists, file_list)
"
shouldn't it read stripped_lines = [line.strip() for line in lines]?
Or you really want a list of "built-in method strip"?

That's it. The text is very good! Congratulations.

-- 
Regards
Leandro Lameiro

Blog: http://lameiro.redirectme.net/blog


On 6/30/06, A.M. Kuchling <amk at amk.ca> wrote:
> I've finally completed a first draft of a Functional Programming HOWTO
> that discusses the language feature and modules that are useful
> in functional-style programs.
>
> The draft is at <http://www.amk.ca/python/writing/functional>; this
> won't be its permanent home, because once it's done it'll go in
> Doc/howto/ in the distribution.
>
> I'd greatly appreciate comments on it.  It still feels somehow
> incomplete, like more of the general material is needed, but I'm not
> sure what to add.
>
> I wrote a small but nontrivial functional program as an example --
> it's in sandbox/Doc in SVN -- but I'm not sure dissecting an example
> is very useful.  The resulting section would be fairly long, and I
> haven't come up with an example that exercises every single feature
> (e.g. most of the \ functions in the itertools module).
>
> A more minor issue: perhaps the HOWTO should describe genexps in
> detail, and mention listcomps as an aside; this would be the oppposite
> of how it's currently organized.  Thoughts?
>
> --amk
> _______________________________________________
> Doc-SIG maillist  -  Doc-SIG at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/doc-sig
>