Question

When comparing these, which do you think is more intuitive / easier to read?

>>> [ord(i) for i in 'some string']
[115, 111, 109, 101, 32, 115, 116, 114, 105, 110, 103]

>>> map(ord,'some string')
[115, 111, 109, 101, 32, 115, 116, 114, 105, 110, 103]

Is there any benefit to the lambda/map way?

Answer 1

I like the first one better and there’s an advantage to it. You can instead of

[ord(i) for i in 'some string']

write

(ord(i) for i in 'some string')

and have a generator instead of making a list. Great in some siutations.