I've actually been reading the => operator as "maps to".  Stealing your example:

Customer see "maps to" see dot age is greater than 21.

I call it "rocket ship".

You probably don't want to know what I call the :- operator in Prolog...

I read the => operator as: "is used to get" or "are used to get" since items to the left of the operator are used as parameters in the expression that returns something.

"Customer see is used to get see dot Name."

(Customer c)=>c.Name

"Customer see is used to get dot Age is greater than twenty-one."

(Customer c)=>c.Age > 21

"int ecks and string ess are used to get ess dot length is greater than ecks."

(int x, string s) => s.Length > x

(Customer c) => c.Name;

"[Given|For] Customer see, [return|yield] see dot Name."

Having thought about it a bit more, I'd substitute 'evaluate' for 'return|yield' to further differentiate it from a precompiled anonymous delegate:

(Customer c) => c.Name;

"Given a Customer see, evaluate see dot Name."

I give my vote to "maps to". Mathematically, a function maps values from A to B. In a way, you would rather be saying "customer see is mapped to a string via see dot name" or "customer is mapped to a boolean via see dot age greater 21"

+1 for "Given a Customer see, evaluate see dot Name"

"Maps to" and ilk directly translate to "Select", which is but one of the many uses of lambdas.

How about just lambda?

customer see lambda see dot name

This is one of the reason's I like VB. Our version Function(c as Customer) C.Name easily translates into "the function of C as Customer returns C dot Name". It is hard to find a VB line that doesn't read cleanly.

Does MSDN count as a source for "official" jargon? It refers to => as "goes to":

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb397687.aspx

It is also hard to write VB lines that are terse.

I like "yield", but unfortunately C# already has a yield.  I've been using "such that" quite a bit, but it doesn't really work in all cases.

Oh yeah, and I hate "goes to".  Just sounds weird to me.

I usualy translate

{ParameterList} => {Lambda Body}

for

given a {ParameterList}, {Lambda Body}

with nothing in the middle but a comma.

For over a decade (and then some) I've written code in VB and I never found a use for Imp or Eqv even when I tried to invent one.  Perhaps thats the reason they're not in VB.NET ;)

Your method would only work with a C programmer who was on the *exact* same wavelength as you.  Even many C programmers would be clueless as to what you are say.   So like your method abnd logic = FAIL.  

What if you were reading the same code to a secretary, or your Dilbert managemetn boss, or a high school teenager taking a programming class, or your mother learning to program?  They would have no clue what you were talking about.

Reading over the telephone, you need to spell it out exactly as its keyboard character names....   below is how I would do it in English, other languages of course would vary to their approapriate keyboard symbol names:

sea <pause> equals sign <pause> greater than sign <pause> sea <pause> plus sign <pause> one

I stress the inclusion of pauses of silence, to give the person on the other side to process the symbol in their brain, locate it on the keyboard, and press it, and mainly, to deliminate each individual symbol from the previous and the next, for many symbols are expressed not as a single word (ie, asterix) but as a string of words (ie, greater than symbol)

Just another "silly" question :-) how would you read Python code indentation over the phone ?

@Stephan:

I suppose you could read it how it lexes. So "if a is greater than 5, then foo of a, dedent. bar of a". Though what you say doesn't have to be a literal transcription of the syntax -- I think I'd probably say "end if" or similar...

As for (Customer c) => (c.Age > 5), I think I'd say "lambda customer see to see dot age greater than five". I might not say the "lambda" if it's clear what I mean without it.

For a predicate, (Customer c)=>c.Age > 21: "customer see such that see dot age is greater than twenty-one"

I would say "customer c where c dot age is greater than twenty-one"

So how well does the "c" read over the phone? What does see mean? Vision? Sea? Si (Spanish)? Yes dot name? The Atlantic ocean dot name? Or is it the Gulf of Mexico we're talking about?

What is it with lambda expressions (and linq) that dictate that we should start writing unreadable code?

Do you use variable names like "c" and "s" elsewhere?

Especially with linq, when I look a query with all those single character variables I have to unnecessarily use extra brain cycles to map what those meaningless single char variables mean. I should be able to understand what every part of a lambda expression is doing without having to go back and map what those variables refer to.

With intellisense and Resharper there's just no excuse to be writing code like that.

Rather than place the links to the most recent C# team content directly in Community Convergence, I have

30 years ago my brother, Mark, worked on a new HP desktop calculator called the 9825.  it had a new feature and a new button with a symbol much like "=>"; he named it the "gazinta" key.  (as in, "goes in to").  Why not create a new name for this feature and call it "gazinta"?

+tom