The one place where the functools.partial failed me was in partialing on class methods. functools.partial actually gives you a callable class, instead of the functional closure that this example gives you (though I don't really consider this to be that great of an example). When a class is instantiated, the method functions (unbound methods) are turned into bound methods, something a class can't be. Guido talks about this a bit whole process here... http://python-history.blogspot.com/2009/02/first-class-every...

So python guys are still looking for the One True Way to do this? How unpythonic.

I agree, but this "rudimentary" version is easier to understand for someone new to functional programming. It trades generality for pedagogical clarity.