Re: Tcl/Lisp/Python: A "User" point of view

Mark Friedman (bobo@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov)
Wed, 28 Sep 1994 09:33:05 -0700 (PDT)

* > Note that functions created with lambda forms cannot contain
* > statements.
* >
* > Supposedly these features were created by popular demand. So which one
* > of you demanded these eviscerated lambdas?
*
* Nobody did. Lambda forms in Python provide ABSOLUTELY NO NEW
* FUNCTIONALITY

I was just quoting something in the "New Features" section of the Python web
page. It said "by popular demand".

* Python lambda forms cannot contain statements because Python's
* syntactic framework can't handle statements nested inside functions
* (nor the mindset of most programmers :-).

I wasn't really that concerned about the lack of statements. It is really the
lack of ability to reference variables in outer non-global scopes (i.e.
closures) that makes these functions much less able to be used in the way that
proponents of functional languages generally use functions.

-Mark