On 16.02.2021 23:13, Greg Ewing wrote:
> On 17/02/21 7:10 am, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> "It's Greek letter, like pi that you may remember from maths
>> class. In some technical computer science, the Greek L, lambda, is used
>> as the symbol for functions."
>
> The most accurate answer seems to be "Because somebody made
> a mistake transcribing a mathematics paper many years ago." :-)
The Python notation for anonymous function is almost a direct
reference to the original notation for such functions in
lambda calculus:
λx.x+1 ... lambda x: x+1
I think that's an excellent hint for students to look up on this
great piece of mathematical logic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus
and learn something about the foundations of computer science.
Why the Greek letter lambda ? Who knows -- mathematicians love
Greek letters, logic is λογική in Greek, ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus#Origin_of_the_lambda_symbol
And, of course, if you don't like anonymous functions, you're
always free to give your functions names in Python ;-)
--
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com
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