[Python-Dev] Use an empty def as a lambda (original) (raw)

Ryan rymg19 at gmail.com
Sat Sep 21 19:55:20 CEST 2013

Change def to func? That's the worst idea I've heard yet. Def is already there; why break all existing code just for a word?

"Westley Martínez" <anikom15 at gmail.com> wrote:

'def' is no more ambiguous than 'lambda', and is in fact more ambiguous, for 'def' doesn't lend itself to anything other than the word define, whilst 'lambda' can only mean lambda function. Calling def explicit is silly. It only makes sense because def arbitrarily means a function in Python (I'm proposing def become func or proc in Python 4000).

To call lambda too 'computer sciencey' is equally ridiculous, for pro- gramming is a key spawn of computer science. A programmer needs to have some knowledge of computer science to program, just like a physicist needs knowledge of calculus to understand mechanics.

-----Original Message----- From: Python-Dev [mailto:python-dev-bounces+anikom15=gmail.com at python.org] On Behalf Of Ben Gift Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 1:54 PM To: python-dev at python.org Subject: [Python-Dev] Use an empty def as a lambda

I think the lambda keyword is difficult to understand for many people. It would be more pythonic to use an empty def call instead.

For instance this: words.sort(key = lambda x: x[2]) could look like this: words.sort(key = def (x): x[2]) It's obvious and explicit that we're creating an unnamed, anonymous function this way.

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