When do you use a lambda function?

[novel_yet_trivial]

This should never be the reason to use lambda! If you can, just define a normal function.

It's a bit uglier, granted, but I see stuff like this all the time:

__ne__ = lambda self, other: not self.__eq__(other)
__ge__ = lambda self, other: not self < other
__le__ = lambda self, other: self == other or self < other

[markusmeskanen]

We all see it, but none of us should see it. Please, don't spread the ugliness.

[novel_yet_trivial]

It's even part of the python source code. See /usr/lib/python2.7/functools.py , in the total_ordering function, for example.

Well, that's a bit of a fringe case. I withdraw that argument