4 ms·

I meant structural precomputation. But yeah, I forget you can discard names. You're right: through sufficient use of discarded intermediate bindings you can rep

I meant structural precomputation. But yeah, I forget you can discard names. You're right: through sufficient use of discarded intermediate bindings you can replicate multi-line lambdas. Still, the existence of this sorta demands we ask, "So why can't we use it then?"

maxerickson 9y ago
I'm not steeped in functional programming, but isn't anonymity the least interesting part compared to being first class and forming closures?
- KingMob 9y ago
  I don't really see it as an FP thing at all, because the same argument can be made with respect to variable names. The issue is that without serious anonymous functions, you're forced to come up with more names, increasing cognitive load. An anonymous fn clearly communicates "I'm not going to be used elsewhere".
  - xapata 9y ago
    So call it something generic related to usage: keyfunc, repeat, parse, callback, etc.
    - KirinDave 9y ago
      Why increase the complexity and density of the code while complaining that the alternative would be too complex though? If I can simulate anonymous functions with locally scoped functions that then behave as lambdas then what hill is Python dying on here? The "we don't want to submit a patch to make our parser do this?" Hill? It's definitely possible to do. So...
  - pseudalopex 9y ago
    The small increase in cognitive load when writing the code pays off when reading it. My editor can tell me where a function is used. It can't tell me what a function does.
    - xapata 9y ago
      And with anonymous functions, your traceback often hasn't a clue where the function was defined.
      - KirinDave 9y ago
        That's untrue. That's usually the least interesting part of the stack trace, but the easiest to compute. But your complaint isn't without merit here, a profusion of unique nameless verbs can get overbearing sometimes. It's often better than the alternatives (e.g., dependency injection vs lambdas in an environment) but Haskell, ocaml and lisps all seek to have a small but very robust set of combiner and base primitives to help make this kind of code avoid a complexity explosion similar to OO ontology explosions.

maxerickson 9y ago

I'm not steeped in functional programming, but isn't anonymity the least interesting part compared to being first class and forming closures?

KingMob 9y ago
I don't really see it as an FP thing at all, because the same argument can be made with respect to variable names. The issue is that without serious anonymous functions, you're forced to come up with more names, increasing cognitive load. An anonymous fn clearly communicates "I'm not going to be used elsewhere".
- xapata 9y ago
  So call it something generic related to usage: keyfunc, repeat, parse, callback, etc.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    Why increase the complexity and density of the code while complaining that the alternative would be too complex though? If I can simulate anonymous functions with locally scoped functions that then behave as lambdas then what hill is Python dying on here? The "we don't want to submit a patch to make our parser do this?" Hill? It's definitely possible to do. So...
- pseudalopex 9y ago
  The small increase in cognitive load when writing the code pays off when reading it. My editor can tell me where a function is used. It can't tell me what a function does.
  - xapata 9y ago
    And with anonymous functions, your traceback often hasn't a clue where the function was defined.
    - KirinDave 9y ago
      That's untrue. That's usually the least interesting part of the stack trace, but the easiest to compute. But your complaint isn't without merit here, a profusion of unique nameless verbs can get overbearing sometimes. It's often better than the alternatives (e.g., dependency injection vs lambdas in an environment) but Haskell, ocaml and lisps all seek to have a small but very robust set of combiner and base primitives to help make this kind of code avoid a complexity explosion similar to OO ontology explosions.