Here's what I call a simple proposal. Some people might find it outrageous. Today is not 1st April.
BACKGROUND ============ Many Python users don't like the name lambda. But many Python users don't want any change here. This is true because there are millions of Python users, and even 100 is many. And it's hard to introduce a new keyword, which might break existing code. (And perhaps even worse, break the community.) https://wiki.python.org/moin/LocalUserGroups > There about 1,637 Python user groups worldwide in almost 191 cities, 37 > countries and over 860,333 members. SOME VALID PYTHON ================== Here's some valid Python, defining two functions fn and gn, that are virtually identical. >>> def fn(a, b=2, c=3): ... return a ** b / c >>> fn <function fn at 0x7ff815dddf28> >>> gn = lambda a, b=2, c=3: a ** b / c >>> gn <function <lambda> at 0x7ff815e2bbf8> Notice that fn and gn have the same type, and differ by name. >>> type(fn), type(gn) (<class 'function'>, <class 'function'>) >>> fn.__qualname__, gn.__qualname__ ('fn', '<lambda>') And that we can modify the display name of fn and gn. >>> fn.__qualname__ = 'my_fn' >>> fn <function my_fn at 0x7ff815dddf28> >>> gn.__qualname__ = 'my_gn' >>> gn <function my_gn at 0x7ff815e2bbf8> MY SIMPLE PROPOSAL ==================== Here is my simple proposal. Enhance Python to allow >>> hn = def a, b=2, c=3: a ** b / c >>> hn <function at 0x7ff811e57620> >>> hn.__qualname__ '' MIGRATION ========== Migration of code would require only a keyword substitution of 'lambda' by 'def'. And in the docs 1. Note that 'def' can mean 'define' (the current use), and also 'defer' (evaluation of an expression). 2. In the first case, we have a *named function*. In the second case, we have an *expression function*. This idea came to me while writing: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2018-August/052880.html -- Jonathan _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
