[PEP 202] Re: [Python-Dev] Product iteration

[Skip Montanaro]

    Eric> Dammit, I should have seen this sooner; the whole debate about
    Eric> parallel loops and zip() was a flare-lit clue.  Gentlemen, we've
    Eric> been going entirely down the wrong path trying to express list
    Eric> comprehensions via a syntax in imperative style.  What they want
    Eric> to be is an applicative sublanguage in functional style -- and
    Eric> mostly about data composition rather than the expression of
    Eric> iteration per se.

Part of the motivation for list comprehensions as I recall is that we'd like
to get away from such a strong reliance on map, reduce and filter.  Although
powerful concepts, as implemented in Python they tend to be inefficient in
many cases, are not powerful enough (incomplete set of functions perhaps?)
for the Lispers and are too confusing for non-Lispers, especially when used
in complex ways (more than two of them used in the same expression
constitutes complex usage to my feeble brain).

(I PEP'd the subject so Guido and Tim can find it easily.)

Skip