Bind Vs Lambda?

C++0x lambdas are monomorphic, while bind can be polymorphic. You cannot have something like

auto f = [](auto a, auto b) { cout << a << ' ' << b; }
f("test", 1.2f);

a and b must have known types. On the other hand, tr1/boost/phoenix/lambda bind allows you to do this:

struct foo
{
  typedef void result_type;

  template < typename A, typename B >
  void operator()(A a, B b)
  {
    cout << a << ' ' << b;
  }
};

auto f = bind(foo(), _1, _2);
f("test", 1.2f); // will print "test 1.2"

Note that the types A and B are not fixed here. Only when f is actually used these two will be deduced.

As you said, bind and lambdas don't quite exactly aim at the same goal.

For instance, for using and composing STL algorithms, lambdas are clear winners, IMHO.

To illustrate, I remember a really funny answer, here on stack overflow, where someone asked for ideas of hex magic numbers, (like 0xDEADBEEF, 0xCAFEBABE, 0xDEADDEAD etc.) and was told that if he were a real C++ programmer he would simply have download a list of English words and use a simple one-liner of C++ :)

#include <iterator>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <boost/lambda/lambda.hpp>
#include <boost/lambda/bind.hpp>

int main()
{
    using namespace boost::lambda;
    std::ifstream ifs("wordsEn.txt");
    std::remove_copy_if(
        std::istream_iterator<std::string>(ifs),
        std::istream_iterator<std::string>(),
        std::ostream_iterator<std::string>(std::cout, "\n"),
        bind(&std::string::size, _1) != 8u
            ||
        bind(
            static_cast<std::string::size_type (std::string::*)(const char*, std::string::size_type) const>(
                &std::string::find_first_not_of
            ),
            _1,
            "abcdef",
            0u
        ) != std::string::npos
    );
}

This snippet, in pure C++98, open the English words file, scan each word and print only those of length 8 with 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e' or 'f' letters.

Now, turn on C++0X and lambda :

#include <iterator>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

int main()
{
 std::ifstream ifs("wordsEn.txt");
 std::copy_if(
    std::istream_iterator<std::string>(ifs),
    std::istream_iterator<std::string>(),
    std::ostream_iterator<std::string>(std::cout, "\n"),
    [](const std::string& s)
    {
       return (s.size() == 8 && 
               s.find_first_not_of("abcdef") == std::string::npos);
    }
 );
}

This is still a bit heavy to read (mainly because of the istream_iterator business), but a lot simpler than the bind version :)

The C++ 0x lamdba syntax is more readable than the bind syntax. Once you get into more than 2-3 level bind, you code becomes pretty much unreadable and difficult to maintain. I would prefer the more intuitive lambda syntax.