Draft Pep (was: Re: Let's Talk About Lambda Functions!)

[Greg Ewing]

François Pinard wrote:

> The rumour states that Guido regrets having added `lambda' to Python.
> I guess it goes beyond the mere `lambda' keyword: it is reasonable to
> think that what Guido regrets is the addition of anonymous functions.


As I understand it, Guido added lambda at the request of
functional-language type people who said they wanted it.
However, he didn't fully understand what they wanted it
*for*, and it turned out that what they *really* wanted
was a lambda with nested lexical scoping. So the lambda
that Guido added didn't really give them what they wanted,
and if he'd known that beforehand, he wouldn't have
considered it worth adding in the first place.

Things are a bit murkier now that we really do have
a form of nested lexical scoping. My guess is that
Guido still believes lambda doesn't pull its weight
(but I'm only an amateur when it comes to channeling
Guido).

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept,
University of Canterbury,	
Christchurch, New Zealand
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg