On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 21:02:46 -0600, Doug Holton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
used, but there are people who do not like "lambda":
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/view/419#comment-3069
The word "lambda" is meaningless to most people. Of course so is "def", which might be why Guido van Robot changed it to "define": http://gvr.sourceforge.net/screen_shots/
The unfamiliar argument doesn't work for me. After all most people are unfamiliar with complex numbers (or imaginary) numbers but python still provides a complex number type. Just because the name is unfamiliar to some doesn't mean we shouldn't use the term if its the correct one for the concept.
I'm not sure this is really a fair comparison. What's the odds that if you're unfamiliar with complex numbers that you're going to have to read or write code that uses complex numbers? Probably pretty low. I don't think I've ever had to read or write such code, and I *do* understand complex numbers. Lambdas, on the other hand, show up in all kinds of code, and even though I hardly ever use them myself, I have to understand them because other people do (over-)use them.
Steve -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
