[Python-ideas] Proposal for function expressions

[George Sakkis]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Paul Moore<p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/7/14 Chris Perkins <chrisperkins99 at gmail.com>:
>>
>> y = sorted(x, key=&) do(item):
>>    name = item.split('-')[1]
>>    return name.upper()
>>
>> I think that forcing that two-line block of code to have a name would
>> serve no purpose - it's abundantly clear what it does.
>
> That's a very telling statement. To me, that code is utterly baffling.
> (Seriously! Without analysing it line by line, it means nothing to
> me).

Seconded, there's too much going on ('&', what's "do", a function ?,
what's "item" ?, etc.). FWIW the only readable suggestion for
multiline lambdas with almost zero learning curve I have seen is the
one implemented in Boo, anonymous def and regular indentation:

y = sorted(x, key=def (item):
                               name = item.split('-')[1]
                               return name.upper()
               )

There must be somewhere posted the reason this was rejected but my
google-fu is failing me.

George

[1] http://boo.codehaus.org/Closures