On 2/7/06, Brett Cannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 2/5/06, Guido van Rossum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > After so many attempts to come up with an alternative for lambda, > > perhaps we should admit defeat. I've not had the time to follow the > > most recent rounds, but I propose that we keep lambda, so as to stop > > wasting everybody's talent and time on an impossible quest. > > I have been thinking about this, and I have to say I am a little > disappointed (-0 disappointed, not -1 disappointed). I honestly > bought the argument for removing lambda. And I think that a deferred > object would help with one of lambda's biggest uses and made its loss > totally reasonable.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean here, but as far as my understanding goes, current lambda *is* a "deferred object" (or at least a "deferred expression", which may not be quite what you mean...) > But I know that everyone and their email client is against me on this > one, so I am not going to really try to tear into this. But I do > think that lambda needs a renaming. I agree with this. The *name* "lambda" is a wart, even if the deferred expression feature isn't. My preference is to simply replace the keyword lambda with a keyword "expr" (or if that's not acceptable because there's too much prior use of expr as a variable name, then maybe "expression" - but that's starting to get a bit long). > Speaking as someone who still > forgets that Python's lambda is not the same as those found in > functional languages, Well, only in the sense that Python's *expressions* are not the same as those found in functional languages (ie, Python has statements which are not expressions). But I see your point - and I strongly object to going the other way and extending lambda/expr to allow statements or suites. > I would much rather have it named 'expr' or > 'expression' or something that is more inline with its abilities then > with a name taken for CS historical reasons. This ain't for father's > lambda and thus shouldn't be named so. Agreed. But if "expr" isn't acceptable, I don't like the other common suggestion of reusing "def". It's not a definition, nor is it "like an anonymous function" (the lack of support for statements/suites being the key difference). > Then again, Guido did say he "should", not that he "did" admit defeat. =) OTOH, he was trying to stop endless the discussion... :-) Paul. _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com