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(1) seems like a bug rather than a feature, to me, outside extremely narrow use cases. It's generally much better to be able to statically reason about what cod

(1) seems like a bug rather than a feature, to me, outside extremely narrow use cases. It's generally much better to be able to statically reason about what code exists and how it is structured and called, than to have to reason about runtime behavior to determine those things. I agree with (2), but I'm not sure the pattern from the OP is a good example of using that power. It seems like using a language feature - mapping a string to an anonymous function - when a better one exists: defining named functions. Named functions can be looked up dynamically by name in python, and are (I think) generally more clear to a reader, especially with the standard documentation and type hints.

raverbashing 3y ago
1) is absolutely not a bug, though sure you don't want to overuse it" "Oh but you can replace this with a derived class", it's not as flexible (for example, mix and matching, etc) > than to have to reason about runtime behavior to determine those things. Sure if you only do CRUD you probably won't run into those cases. Math heavy, scientific code, simulations, etc might disagree
- sanderjd 3y ago
  > "Oh but you can replace this with a derived class", it's not as flexible (for example, mix and matching, etc) What do you mean by "mix and matching"? I feel like a concrete example might help me understand what you're thinking of in this thread. > Sure if you only do CRUD you probably won't run into those cases. Math heavy, scientific code, simulations, etc might disagree Ha, it's funny because I've recently started doing more math-y / scientific / simulation work in python, after a career spent mostly doing CRUD-y things in not-python, and I've never been more convinced that it is best to make code as statically legible as possible. It's hard enough to make sure the math and the algorithms are right, I don't want to also be reasoning through dynamic abstractions. But again, maybe there's a concrete thing you're thinking of here that I'm not seeing!
  - raverbashing 3y ago
    > What do you mean by "mix and matching"? A bit of a contrived example, but think of multiple inheritance but dynamically. > maybe there's a concrete thing you're thinking of here Genetic programming would be the main use case of this (of table dispatch, not the "mix and match thing", which ok, is a bit of a corner case > I've never been more convinced that it is best to make code as statically legible as possible Given how the average academic code is, I don't think I can disagree with you much And I think it's also a question of syntax. For those kinds of things a lambda might be more readable, but a typed lambda is still a lambda.

raverbashing 3y ago

1) is absolutely not a bug, though sure you don't want to overuse it" "Oh but you can replace this with a derived class", it's not as flexible (for example, mix and matching, etc) > than to have to reason about runtime behavior to determine those things. Sure if you only do CRUD you probably won't run into those cases. Math heavy, scientific code, simulations, etc might disagree

sanderjd 3y ago
> "Oh but you can replace this with a derived class", it's not as flexible (for example, mix and matching, etc) What do you mean by "mix and matching"? I feel like a concrete example might help me understand what you're thinking of in this thread. > Sure if you only do CRUD you probably won't run into those cases. Math heavy, scientific code, simulations, etc might disagree Ha, it's funny because I've recently started doing more math-y / scientific / simulation work in python, after a career spent mostly doing CRUD-y things in not-python, and I've never been more convinced that it is best to make code as statically legible as possible. It's hard enough to make sure the math and the algorithms are right, I don't want to also be reasoning through dynamic abstractions. But again, maybe there's a concrete thing you're thinking of here that I'm not seeing!
- raverbashing 3y ago
  > What do you mean by "mix and matching"? A bit of a contrived example, but think of multiple inheritance but dynamically. > maybe there's a concrete thing you're thinking of here Genetic programming would be the main use case of this (of table dispatch, not the "mix and match thing", which ok, is a bit of a corner case > I've never been more convinced that it is best to make code as statically legible as possible Given how the average academic code is, I don't think I can disagree with you much And I think it's also a question of syntax. For those kinds of things a lambda might be more readable, but a typed lambda is still a lambda.