On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Olivier Verdier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If you ask a scientist, even a computer scientist, what "lambda" means he > will invariably answer that it is a letter in the Greek alphabet. Only a few > people working with lambda calculus will think of "lambda" as being related > to a function. Many beginners (included myself) were puzzled by "lambda" the > first time they meet it. It doesn't look as clean as the rest of python > syntax where you hardly need explain what the keywords mean. It's actually recommended that inline functions be used anyway. > > > Guido once said that he hadn't found a better name. Well, I think that > almost *any* name will do better! ;-) Especially a name that emphasizes the > fact that lambda construction are in fact functions. This is what Guido > repeats over and over again: lambda is just synctactic sugar for a function > definition. Here are suggestion for a new name for lambda, which will much > better describe what it is, namely a *function*. Since function are defined > with the keyword "def" i'd suggest the following possibilities: > - ldef (local definition, or indeed, lambda definition ;-)) > - idef (inline definition) > - cdef (compact definition) > - sdef (shorthand definition) > etc. These are all abbreviations, which I find don't help much. How about just local? > > anything along theses lines will be more descriptive than "lambda" and > most newcommers will immediately guess what it is about without wading > through the manual. The python code will also be more readable for non > python specialists. > > It's too late to change the name lambda in Python 2.x but why not change > it in python 3000 since this release breaks backwards compatibility anyway? Yeah, probably too late. > > > Any thoughts about that? Any ideas of other better names than "lambda"? > > Thanks! > > > _______________________________________________ > Python-3000 mailing list > Python-3000@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000 > Unsubscribe: > http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-3000/musiccomposition%40gmail.com > > -- Cheers, Benjamin Peterson
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