Why not real anonymous functions?

[drdavella (Dan D'Avella)]

@Rosuav

Python has a lambda keyword that does this job.

The functionality of lambda is severely restricted.

@davidism

If you’re asking “why not multiline lambda syntax” then there are years if not decades of previous iterations of this exact question that you can find on the mailing list and then these forums more recently. You’ll note that despite this long history, there are still no multiline lambdas, so that’s probably unlikely to change this time either.

That’s useful context but it’s also sort of a non-answer. An opinion that may have been justified in 2006 may no longer be so in 2024, especially in light of developments in other languages. Python itself has adopted many functional constructs in the meantime. (Try to imagine using match in Python back in 2006!) So it seems worth revisiting at the least.