[Python-Dev] product()

[Alex Martelli]

On Sunday 26 October 2003 04:36, Guido van Rossum wrote:
   ...
> > Unfortunately, this usage is pushing at TWO not-strengths of Python:
> > no neat way to pass an unnamed predicate (lambda ain't really all
> > that neat...) AND no assignment-as-expression.  So, I don't think it
> > would really catch on all that much.
>
> Yeah.  An explicit for loop sounds much better in cases where we want
> to know which x failed the test.  Let alltrue() be as simple as
> originally proposed.

Yeah, makes sense.


> Do we need allfalse() and anytrue() and anyfalse() too?  These can all
> easily be gotten by judicious use of 'not'.  I think ABC has EACH,
> SOME and NO (why not all four? who knows).

If we were discussing language or built-ins I would argue for "only one
obvious way to do it", but I don't think this is all that important once we
are discussing standard-library functions (which IS the case here, right?).
Still, I'm not sure I see the benefits of overlapping functionality in this
specific case.


Alex