The trivial lambda case is short, and you can do what the parent said if you want to do something that doesn't fit into the trivial lambda case well.

The "lambda" keyword isn't :(

Where's the boilerplate? "def b():" and "() => {}" are both 8 characters.

It is annoying that you have to give the function a name, though.

On the one hand it’s annoying, on the other it enforces a discipline of thought in the same way that having to name variables does.

That’s an interesting principle, something like “a block of code that is complex enough to be written across multiple lines of code ought to be given a name,” but standard idiomatic Python already violates that principle by featuring multiple lines in the body of a for loop. The fact that the body of a for loop can be multiple lines but the “body” of a lambda cannot is an arbitrary syntax inconsistency.

    def b(x):
      return x + 1

vs

    x => x + 1

That's a couple characters over most languages I normally use. Plus lambdas have a number of strange warts and restrictions (no multi-line lambdas?) that leave me feeling that Python really dislikes traditional functional programming constructs.

Python has become less functional over time. It’s also not a particularly good OO language either. It’s really a more descriptive sort of bash that became ubiquitous despite its short comings.