From: Just Another Victim of the Ambient Morality <ihatespam@...>
Date: 2006-08-01T10:15:09+09:00
Subject: Re: I thought this was the one that worked?


"Chad Perrin" <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote in message 
news:20060731230559.GA27910@apotheon.com...
>
> Who said it's different?  I'm just asking about the foregoing statement
> that all blocks are closures (which strikes me as improbable).  That's
> like saying that this will generate a closure (which it won't):
>
> sub foo {
>  return sub { my $bar = 1; print ++$bar };
> }

    Okay, the mere fact that you "used a Perl example" demonstrates that 
there is a miscommunication going on here.  Why would an example from Perl 
clear anything up?  It's a different language with different semantics.  Are 
you hoping that we all know Perl?

    I suspect what's happening here is that we're mixing up code blocks with 
"Ruby blocks."
    These are examples of what most programmers would call blocks but are 
_not_ Ruby blocks:


def some_method_as_function
    # code block goes here but
    # in the Ruby world, this is not a "block..."
end

while some_condition
    # code block goes here but
    # in the Ruby world, this is not a "block..."
end


    These are Ruby blocks:


[1, 2, 3].each do |i|
    # this is a Ruby block and
    # this is a closure
end

some_local_variable = 2
func = lambda { puts some_local_variable }  # a one line block and closure


    All things that are called "blocks" in Ruby are closures.
    Do you still have any questions on the matter?