[ruby-core:39853] Re: 2.0 feature questionnaire

On 2011/10/02 9:51, Urabe Shyouhei wrote:

> (10/01/2011 04:53 PM), Chuck Remes wrote:

>> - Remove confusing proc/lambda/Proc differences
>
> proc is Proc and lambda is ->(){}.  No confusion now.

That's easy for people who know what a proc is, and what a lambda is. 
But that may not be everybody.

A simplification in this area was on my wishlist, too. At the time, as 
far as I remember it, there were at least two axes on which these and 
simila constructs differed.

One axis was the handling of parameters/attributes: strictly positional 
or with all kinds of bells and whistles (splats, defaults,...), and 
whether a mismatch between actual and formal attributes triggered an 
error or not.

Another axis was what happened in the case of a return: Jump out of the 
construct only or also jump out of the surrounding method. There were 
also related differences for break and next.

As far as I understand, there was quite a bit of work on the first axis. 
But if I look at the 1.8 and 1.9 Pickaxe books, the 1.8 book spends a 
bit less than 3 pages on Blocks, Closures, and Proc Objects, whereas the 
1.9 book spends 4 pages on the same topic.

Anyway, if we get to a point where we can say:

proc is Proc and does ..., and lambda is ->(){} and does ....
(where the '...' parts are extremely simple), then and only then can we 
say "No confusion now.".

Regards,    Martin.