High Order Python — Part 5

Title: High Order Python — Part 5

URL Source: https://medium.com/engineering-playbook/high-order-python-part-5-1fc3cc288831?source=rss------python-5

Published Time: 2026-04-13T03:07:10Z

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# High Order Python — Part 5. Generators: Lazy is the New Smart | by ez7 | Apr, 2026 | Medium

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# High Order Python — Part 5

## Generators: Lazy is the New Smart

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Python Generator

In the first four posts ([Functions](https://medium.com/@ez7/high-order-python-part-1-26cfc28f8afa), [Callbacks](https://medium.com/@ez7/high-order-python-part-2-f1594d28a6c4), [Dispatch Tables](https://medium.com/@ez7/high-order-python-part-3-11ac110a69f2), and [Memoization](https://medium.com/@ez7/high-order-python-part-4-d6dde18ae1c8)), we’ve been building functions that do their work eagerly — compute a result, return it, done. But what if you don’t want all the results at once? What if there are a million of them? What if there are _infinitely many_?

Python has an answer, and it’s one of the language’s best ideas: **generators**. A generator is a function that produces values one at a time, pausing between each one, resuming only when you ask for the next. It’s lazy computation built into the language, and it changes how you think about data processing.

[_Higher-Order Perl_](https://hop.perl.plover.com/)spends several chapters building lazy sequences