Python complaints

[François Pinard]

Dan Schmidt <dfan at harmonixmusic.com> writes:

> Mark Carroll <markc at chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> | Basically, I'd be really interested to learn: what _don't_ people
> | like about Python?

> The main thing I find frustrating is that lambdas are not very
> powerful.

So do I.  They are a bit awkward and do not fit so well in the language.
Moreover, they are not really needed.  The solution should be to eradicate
lambda's instead of making them more powerful.  This is easily done here:
by choice, I just never use them.  But I would even prefer not having the
choice, for the benefit of Python being a bit simpler.

> Much of the time that I would use a simple 'map {}' in Perl, I find that
> I have to write a separate function [...]

Writing two more lines is not such a big deal, given that usually, people
are using `lambda's rather sparingly, anyway.  Eradicating `lambda's would
probably never yield a source code bloat.

By the way, I find `map' rather useful, even if I read recently that Guido
somewhat regretted having introduced it in Python.  I guess one could write
his/her own `map' function, it is just simpler for the community that the
order and meaning of arguments is decided once and for all in the library.

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard