[Tutor] Are you allowed to shoot camels? [kinda OT]

[Chad Crabtree]

How about a concrete example where lambda is more elegant than a
named 
block of code

aList=['a','bb','ccc','dddd','ee']
bList=aList[:] #deep copy
assert not bList is aList

def sortByLength(item1,item2):
    return cmp(len(item1),len(item2))

bList.sort(sortByLength)
assert bList==['a', 'bb', 'ee', 'ccc', 'dddd']

aList.sort(lambda x,y:cmp(len(x),len(y)))
assert aList==['a', 'bb', 'ee', 'ccc', 'dddd']

Now this is a concrete example of how lambda simplifies code, at
least 
for me because it does not clutter my mental name space.  Also it is 
much shorter.  However it should be said that this is very much a 
question of taste.  However I must say that lambda's are very useful 
even necessary for using Tkinter.

Here's something else, while not exactly the same but an
illustration.

aFuncList=[]
def x():
    print "one"
aFuncList.append(x)
def x():
    print "two"
aFuncList.append(x)
def x():
    print "three"
aFuncList.append(x)
for item in aFuncList:
    item()
In summary there has been a great deal of argument about lambda's,
even 
on this mostly sanguine mailing list.  I feel that it's one of those 
strange things about python true.  Guido purposely made it very
limited 
because it could get hairy very fast with more powerful lambda's, the

functional people would make code that would break newcomers heads. 
God 
knows I had a hard enough time with them at first.



		
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