From: MonkeeSage <MonkeeSage@...>
Date: 2006-09-11T12:40:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Struggling with Blocks

gwtmp01@mac.com wrote:
> A do/end block is simply a snippet of code and a set of variable
> bindings that
> are made available to the called method.  The called method can
> ignore the block,
> call it one or more times, call it conditionally, pass it along to
> some other
> method, and so on.

That's what I was thinking. do...end / {...} is an implicit closure,
begin...end is a simple grouping construct. Also do...end has delayed
evaluation (like a quoted expression in Lisp), where begin...end is
evaluated immediately. That also means that do...end can be assigned to
a name (which results in similar functionality to a Lisp macro; e.g., a
= lambda { |x,y| puts x[y] }; a.call({:tree, 'cat'}, :tree)), and can
be passed around and so on; but begin...end cannot be.

This may help the OP understand the difference a little better:
http://www.artima.com/intv/closures.html

Regards,
Jordan