Anna wrote:
You cut something from that...
"""It's not, after all, the word "lambda" itself; I would still have some issues with using, say "function", instead of "lambda", but at least then I would immediately know what I was looking at..."""
I would have fewer ambiguities about using, say "func" rather than lambda. Lambda always makes me feel like I'm switching to some *other* language (specifically, Greek - I took a couple of semesters of Attic Greek in college and quite enjoyed it.) But, the fact that lambda
Good God, you mean there's a language just for the attic? Those Greeks certainly believed in linguistic specialization, didn't they?
Well, I suspect that Church originally chose lambda precisely because of its meaninglessness, and I'm always amused when mathematical types try to attribute an intuitive meaning to the word. It's purely a learned association, which some arrogantly assume simply *everyone* knows or should know.doesn't MEAN anything (and has come - I mean - DELTA at least has a fairly commonly understood meaning, even at high-school level math. But, lambda? If it was "func" or "function" or even "def", I would be happier. At least that way I'd have some idea what it was supposed to be...
Not that I'm trying to write off lambda supporters as arrogant (though I *do* have a suspicion that many of them break the wrong end of their boiled eggs).
BTW - I am *quite* happy with the proposal for "where:" syntax - IWhereas I find it to be an excrescence, proving (I suppose) that one man's meat is another person's poison, or something.
think it handles the problems I have with lambda quite handily.
regards Steve
[who only speaks Ground Floor English] -- Steve Holden http://www.holdenweb.com/ Python Web Programming http://pydish.holdenweb.com/ Holden Web LLC +1 703 861 4237 +1 800 494 3119 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
