[Python-ideas] Does jargon make learning more difficult?

[David Mertz]

... functions as nouns...

On Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 1:44 PM David Mertz <mertz at gnosis.cx> wrote:

> This isn't trying to snipe. I have written the exact same unnecessary
> circumlocution in my own code hundreds of times. Hopefully most of them
> simplified before release, but I'm sure not all. And I "wrote the book", as
> one says, _Functional Programming in Python_.
>
> Functions as sounds is a powerful but counterintuitive concept.
>
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 1:38 PM David Mertz <mertz at gnosis.cx> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 12:40 PM Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I believe that many people have a lot of trouble grasping the concept of
>>> functions as first-class values capable of being passed to other functions
>>> as data... It took me a long time to stop writing code like this:
>>>
>>>     map(lambda x: len(x), sequence)
>>>
>>> instead of simply map(len, sequence).
>>>
>>
>> That long time is ongoing :-)
>>
>> You recently wrote in another thread:
>>
>>    widget.register(callback=lambda: spam.eggs())
>>
>> Instead of the slightly faster and definitely more direct:
>>
>>   widget.register(callback=spam.eggs())
>>
>>>
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