According to Guido, he wants to drop functional programming constructs in Python. <p><a href="http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=98196" rel="nofollow">http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=98196</a><p>What's interesting is the reasons he gives:<p>"Why drop lambda? Most Python users are unfamiliar with Lisp or Scheme, so the name is confusing; also, there is a widespread misunderstanding that lambda can do things that a nested function can't -- I still recall Laura Creighton's Aha!-erlebnis after I showed her there was no difference! Even with a better name, I think having the two choices side-by-side just requires programmers to think about making a choice that's irrelevant for their program; not having the choice streamlines the thought process."<p>
Basically he wants to dumb down the language to make it more appealing to the mainstream programmer crowd. He wants another java. In the end, I think that mentality is a death sentence for the language.