[Python-3000] A plea for anonymous functions

[Fredrik Lundh]

Ivan Krstić wrote:

>> Let's do some *hard* stuff, for a change.
> 
> I couldn't agree more. The fundamental problem that I see, though, is
> that Guido seems strongly opposed to adding any additional
> metaprogramming features to the language [0], and solving much of the
> hard stuff elegantly and without special-cased, one-off solutions,
> requires these.
> 
> LINQ-like features certainly require having first-class code blocks.

I'm not convinced that they do -- you can emulate LINQ today with 
generators and iterator tools and good old for-in statements:

http://sayspy.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-python-doesnt-need-something-like.html

but as noted in the comments, what's missing is a way for the container 
to do query optimizations based on the *entire* filter expression.  if 
we can come up with a decent mechanism (*) for that, the existing for-in 
block construct is good enough for the rest.

more later.

</F>

*) there are plenty of hacks to address parts of this; everything from
algebra on custom objects (used by various SQL construction kits, RE 
construction kits, etc), code that analyzes an expression by passing 
special AST-building objects through it (used in PIL's point method, for 
example), and code that requires you to pass in the expression as a text 
string (or a ready-made "compiler" module AST-tree).