[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip description of experience teaching high school students] > So I'd say that it's a pretty obscure name that most people wouldn't > know.
It would be hard to argue against that statement; certainly "lambda" in this context (or probably any) is not a word "most people" would know. On the other hand, the name itself is probably not very important. I still remember my first encounter with "lambda" in Python very clearly. I saw the word, thought "huh? what the heck is that?", then read a sentence about it that included some comment about its background in other fields. "Oh," I said, "pre-existing usage. Whatever." I proceeded to read about what it did and how to use it. The name was irrelevant. If the text had said "anonymous functions are created using the keyword 'tribble' (named for a similar feature in a fictional Klingon programming language)", I wouldn't have felt any differently about it. So it makes some sense to a few trekkers... big furry deal. What bothered me was the syntax. Arguments without parentheses? What possessed anyone to put something so inconsistent in the language? No statements? Dang, that will limit my interest in using them. Oh well, what's page four of the tutorial got for me next? It shouldn't take anyone more than ten seconds to integrate "lambda" into their brain and carry on with useful work. Really, the name is such a trivial, unimportant part of this whole thing that it's hardly worth discussing. The syntax is more important, and the limitations are of definite interest. Not the name. -Peter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list