[Python-ideas] Ruby-style Blocks in Python Idea

[Guido van Rossum]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 7:44 PM, Jim Jewett <jimjjewett at gmail.com> wrote:
> When someone says they need anonymous functions, I hear:
>
>     "I really, really *need* the __name__ to be useless!"

I think you need your hearing tuned. By convention anonymous functions
and expressions creating functions are almost always synonymous, in
almost all languages. So people use the shorter term "anonymous
functions" when what they really care about is "expression syntax for
creating new functions on the fly".

>> I don't see the conceptual difference between a "def-expression" (if
>> it were syntactically possible) and a lambda-expression. What is the
>> difference in your view?
>
> The only differences *I* see are syntactical warts in lambda.

Well, those have been discussed at length and depth, and nobody has
come up with an acceptable syntax to embed a block of statements in
the midst of an expression, in Python. That's why they are separate.

> The __name__ is available in case you want to use it for a dispatch
> table, or to populate fields in an alternative User Interface.  (For
> example, accessibility APIs)

When people want the name, they can give it a name using a def statement.

I don't accept your argument against that which seems to go along the
lines of "but maybe they might want the name later". You can write
unreadable code without lambda too. And yes, lambda can be abused; for
a really evil example see this recipe:
http://code.activestate.com/recipes/148061/ (note the mis-use of the
term "one liner" :-).

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)