These are fairly tired criticisms of python. For the first example, learn to use the "global" keyword. It makes those things work, and it's clearer what you're

These are fairly tired criticisms of python. For the first example, learn to use the "global" keyword. It makes those things work, and it's clearer what you're doing when others read it. lambda's are weak because in a language that uses whitespace, you can't easily have a function declared inline be more that one line. You can declare functions anywhere though, so if you need a complicated lambda, just declare a def above it and proceed as usual. The floats bother me too. I'm not sure why they're so messed up.