>
> Hey,
>
> I am intrigued by the comments about lambdas here. Is it really necessary
> to teach them as part of a (beginners?) Python course?
>

I agree that teaching lambdas as in **teaching lambdas** is not necessary.

But teaching beginners how to defend themselves from lambdas,  that will
find in code everywhere, is important.  I always taught students to "see" a
`def` function in lambdas and re-write them as such.  BTW the new pep8
checker recommends exactly that:

http://pep8.readthedocs.org/en/latest/intro.html (E731)

-Filipe


> I understand the benefits of lambdas and use them heavily myself, but
> anything you can do with a lambda, you can do with a traditional function.
> Given that you can't use statements in a lambda and the scoping rules are
> counter intuitive, isn't it better to leave them out when doing such a
> course?
>
> Has anyone here ever taught lambdas as part of a SWC workshop?
>
> Cheers,
> Ewan
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 10:47 PM, David Martin (Staff) <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Discuss [mailto:[email protected]] *On
>> Behalf Of *Lex Nederbragt
>> *Sent:* 03 March 2015 11:34
>> *To:* Software Carpentry Discussion
>> *Subject:* [Discuss] Python for biologists: Five things I hate about
>> teaching Python
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> I just found this post that some people may appreciate:
>> http://pythonforbiologists.com/index.php/five-things-i-hate-about-teaching-python/
>>
>>
>>
>> Lex
>>
>>
>>
>> And as is typical it gets a load of programming solutions when what is
>> needed are teaching solutions. Who thinks that inundating students with
>> closures, context managers etc on their first day in dealing with
>> programming is a good idea? Likewise ‘just copy this, it is magic and will
>> do what you want’ is also deeply unsatisfactory.
>>
>>
>>
>> ..d
>>
>> The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish Charity, No: SC015096
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> [email protected]
>
> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
>
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