[rbanffy]

Why not use a list comprehension for that? Like:

  my_list = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]
  my_other_list = [ elem[1:] for elem in my_list ]

You could also reassign the my_list name to your processed list, but changing the state of things (you are not really changing anything here, just calling something different by an already known name) is very un-functional.

As for your second example, I would consider using "yield".

[andolanra]

I agree wholeheartedly with all of that; in general, actually, I think lambdas in Python should be used sparingly, if at all, and I think Python makes up for any limitations with its other features (e.g. generators, function decorators, list comprehensions, &c.)

The issues with Python's lambdas really come up when you start trying to do things the Haskell-esque way—which is to say, the super-functional category-theory-on-the-brain way—which can be the right solution to certain problems (e.g. monadic parsers) but tends to be difficult to express in a way that's pleasant, non-hacky, and Pythonic. But I am of the personal opinion that Python's design choices make sense and I don't want to rail against it for not being Haskell or Ruby; I just wanted to show how anonymous functions in particular differ from language to language.