Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#2Ever since I've dabbled a bit with Lisp my Python (and javascript) code has become much more functional-y.
Still not sure whether this is a good or bad thing.
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#3why doesn't python have anonymous functions (not just lambdas which can only be expressions)?
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#4why doesn't python have anonymous functions (not just lambdas which can only be expressions)?
Priorities and style. First-class functions are available, and a lot of veteran Python programmers, Guido included, don't like an overwhelmingly functional style.
It's considered opaque.
Personally, I like to fiddle with Clojure in my free time.
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#5They are using the old 'foo and bar or baz' style as a cheap substitute for the ternary operator. That should be 'bar if foo else baz' in modern Python.
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#6Ever since I've dabbled a bit with Lisp my Python (and javascript) code has become much more functional-y. Still not sure whether this is a good or bad thing.
Its funny you mention that. Ive had the same experience with all my code. I found my C++, Java and Python all become more functional thanks to playing around with haskell!
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#7why doesn't python have anonymous functions (not just lambdas which can only be expressions)?
Syntax. Strict indentation rules do not allow using a block of code in an expression.
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#8why doesn't python have anonymous functions (not just lambdas which can only be expressions)?
It lets you define functions on the fly and use them, so the only difference from anonymous functions is that you have to pick a name.
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#9Ever since I've dabbled a bit with Lisp my Python (and javascript) code has become much more functional-y. Still not sure whether this is a good or bad thing.
I think it's a double-edged sword.
I've both written and read code in non-functional languages where the "easy" way of doing it is thrown aside for the "cool functional" way of doing it. Leading to code which was more fun to write, looks cooler, but is also hard to read and written in a different idiom to the actual programming language. Bad.
I'm 100% guilty of this, although I try to stay vigilant. The other day I refactored out a gnarly bit of a Python API, but caught myself feeling sad because it meant deleting a bunch of clever lambda functions I was using to work around it in the first place. Bad!
That said, the other side of the double-edged sword is great - things that lead to giant tangled messes of procedural code can be turned into very nice functional-style constructs. Also, I love having list comprehensions in Python.
Re: Charming Python: Functional programming in Python
#10why doesn't python have anonymous functions (not just lambdas which can only be expressions)?
It lets you define functions on the fly and use them, so the only difference from anonymous functions is that you have to pick a name.
Yeah, I almost wish they didn't use the keyword 'lambda' at all. If you could just write:
def foo(x):
def lambda():
print x
lambda;bar(callback=lambda);baz(42,lambda)
def lambda():
print x * x
lambda;bar(callback=lambda);baz(42,lambda)
Slightly annoying that you need to define the function on the line before, can't inline it, but not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.