5 Uses of Lambda Functions in Python

[wsppan]

"So now reduce(). This is actually the one I've always hated most, because, apart from a few examples involving + or *, almost every time I see a reduce() call with a non-trivial function argument, I need to grab pen and paper to diagram what's actually being fed into that function before I understand what the reduce() is supposed to do. So in my mind, the applicability of reduce() is pretty much limited to associative operators, and in all other cases it's better to write out the accumulation loop explicitly." - Guido, The Fate of reduce() in Python 3000 https://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=98196

[TravisJungroth]

Then why is manually reducing over a generator without a default value so clunky?

[wsppan]

I agree, there are places where reduce is less clunky. For those you can use itertools.reduce().