Steven Bethard wrote: > Chris Perkins wrote: >> Random idea of the day: How about having syntax support for >> currying/partial function application, like this: >> >> func(..., a, b) >> func(a, ..., b) >> func(a, b, ...) >> >> That is: >> 1) Make an Ellipsis literal legal syntax in an argument list. >> 2) Have the compiler recognize the Ellipsis literal and transform the >> function call into a curried/parially applied function. >> >> So the compiler would essentially do something like this: >> >> func(a, ...) ==> curry(func, a) >> func(..., a) ==> rightcurry(func, a) >> func(a, ..., b) ==> rightcurry(curry(func,a), b) >> >> I haven't though this through much, and I'm sure there are issues, but >> I do like the way it looks. The "..." really stands out as saying >> "something is omitted here". > > Interesting idea, but I have a feeling that it probably won't fly for a > couple of reasons: > > (1) The existing use of Ellipsis doesn't have anything to do with your > suggested use. I think people are generally opposed to giving > keywords/symbols in Python two very different meanings. This is one of > the reasons Guido never liked the "a, b, *c = iterable" syntax. > > (2) Emphasis recently on python-dev has been away from syntax changes > and towards expansion of the standard library. You would have to make a > _very_ good case that the new syntax is merited. > > Generally I do like the idea -- I think a lot of the cases that people > have made for keeping lambda could be discarded with something like > this... But it'd need an extremely well thought out PEP (and an > implementation of course) and even then, I wouldn't get my hopes up.
I like it, and if it helps to convince people that it is okay to get rid of lambda, perhaps Guido will like it too. What about proposing it on python-dev? Reinhold -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
