Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most times you are interested in doing the simple, e.g.: filtered = [x for x in seq if x>10] Python's list comprehension is much more readable than using map/filter/reduce - at least for Python programmers :) Anyhow, I really like Guido's decision on dropping these - it creates a cleaner language and forces people to think Pythonic when programming in Python.
> Python's list comprehension is much more readable than using map/filter/reduce - at least for Python programmers For simple cases, yes. But I wouldn't say [each for each in [expensive_call(x) for x in seq] if cond(each)] is more readable than filter(cond, map(expensive_call, seq)) at least for functional-thinking minds. The level of thinking in abstract is different here. Now the problem is, some people see Python…
Later, I ran into some cases where I wanted a multi-line lambda. And my thought was "aaragh134!#?!"
Then, a weird thing happened. I started making a conscious effort to follow PEP 8. 79 column limit? Seriously? That sucks. But after weeks of struggling with it, something finally hit me. I realized I was writing better code by forcing myself to reduce code density. Sure, it was a little bit longer, but I spend way more time reading it than writing it.
Stop trying to fight it; assign a name to that lambda. Readability counts.
Stop trying to be clever; assign a name to that inner expression. Flat is better than nested.