A critic of Guido's blog on Python's lambda

[Frank Buss]

Alex Martelli wrote:

> Sorry, but I just don't see what lambda is buying you here.  Taking just
> one simple example from the first page you quote, you have:
> 
> (defun blank ()
>   "a blank picture"
>   (lambda (a b c)
>     (declare (ignore a b c))
>     '()))

You are right, for this example it is not useful. But I assume you need
something like lambda for closures, e.g. from the page
http://www.frank-buss.de/lisp/texture.html :

(defun black-white (&key function limit)
  (lambda (x y)
    (if (> (funcall function x y) limit)
        1.0
      0.0)))

This function returns a new function, which is parametrized with the
supplied arguments and can be used later as building blocks for other
functions and itself wraps input functions. I don't know Python good
enough, maybe closures are possible with locale named function definitions,
too.

-- 
Frank Buss, fb at frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de