On 3/27/08, Neil Toronto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Olivier Verdier wrote:
> > On 26/03/2008, *Nick Coghlan* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Lambda calculus is a
> > well established field of mathematics, so it's a perfectly valid name
> > for the construct.
> > In my university in Sweden lambda calculus is never taught neither in
> > pure nor applied math.
The relevant math courses may well be graduate-level only, and may (or
may not) be titled something like "logic" or "metamathematics".
> > applied to linguistics. The word "lambda" however is used all over the
> > place as an eigenvalue, or a wave length, or parameter, or Lamé
> > coefficient in many of our courses.
This is a (minor) problem with any reserved word. I've seen more
trouble with "class", particularly for assignments to create a
registrar or grading program.
> How about reusing "def" to make a lambda expression?
...
> By the time someone comes across this:
> map(def(x): x**2, lst)
> in code, they've already created plenty of functions using "def", ...
> can't imagine that it would be *too* difficult to parse
As a human, it throws me off -- and so does lambda. Much better to just write
def _square(x): return x**2
map(square, lst)
There was enough argument to keep lambda, but *changing* it any way
(except possibly Terry's suggestion to make it a single unicode
character) will just add additional cost.
-jJ
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