lambda forms & locally-defined function

Functions are already first class objects in Python, and can be declared in a local scope. Therefore the only advantage of using a lambda form instead of a locally-defined function is that you don't need to invent a name for the function -- but that's just a local variable to which the function object (which is exactly the same type of object that a lambda form yields) is assigned!


In computer science, a programming language is said to support first-class functions if it treats functions as first-class objects. Specifically, this means that functions can be created during the execution of a program, stored in data structures, passed as arguments to other functions, and returned as the values of other functions.