PEP 312 - Making lambdas implicit worries me, surely it's just the name 'lambda' that is bad...

[Stephen Horne]

On Thu, 13 Mar 2003 08:31:37 GMT, Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it>
wrote:

>Stephen Horne wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 12 Mar 2003 17:54:37 -0500, Jack Diederich
>> <jack at performancedrivers.com> wrote:
>> 
>>>A groups.google link to a post where (in the footnotes) I mention that
>>>'lambda' is both A: a long keyword, and B: one of the few keywords that
>>>never starts a line (hence it jars the eye).
>> 
>> I don't really see the relevance of the fact that "'lambda' never
>> starts a line". Other frequently used words (such as built-in function
>> names) also never start a line - 'reduce' is as long as 'lambda' for a
>
>Some built-in function names OFTEN "start a line" -- setattr, for
>example (you're far more rarely going to use setattr EXCEPT at the
>start of a line).

So what? - some keywords not only OFTEN but ALWAYS start a line.

Jack Diederich is obviously OK with long words starting a line, so I
didn't have anything to be confused about in that case.

>> start. What is the relevance of the distinction between keywords and
>> standard identifiers in this issue?
>
>No idea, just wanted to correct the previous strange assertion;-).

Correct what?

For me, the strange assertion is that "'lambda' is ... one of the few
keywords that never starts a line". It's pretty much accurate, but I
don't see the relevance - especially given that other words than
keywords can be just as long and yet equally be unable (or at least
unlikely) to start a line. I simply wanted to question the relevance
of worrying about the length of keywords that never start a line by
pointing out that other long words may equally never start a line but
are apparently OK.

You're assertion that some built-in function names often start a line
seems to have no relevance to either Jacks or my statements. We are
not debating the kinds of words that *can* start a line. It has
nothing to do with the question at hand.

So I ask again - why does Jack think that keywords that never start a
line should never be long when many other words that never start a
line are long? What is the relevance of the keyword/other word
distinction in this issue?

"ice-cream is cold" will not be considered a valid answer.