From: "ara.t.howard" <ara.t.howard@...>
Date: 2007-07-11T07:36:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Yield should be renamed call_block


On Jul 10, 2007, at 3:33 PM, dblack@wobblini.net wrote:

>> Since I am not a English speeker and I usually dont use that  
>> particlar
>> word, I feel like "yield" as rather like a symbol vaguly related to
>> passing valu to the blok.
>
> Vagueness would be OK, maybe, but the problem is bigger than that:
> it's that "block.yield" just doesn't express what's happening.

i'm with matz on this one

   block.yield

reads, to me, simple as

   'doing my own thing...'

   block.yield 'control to you'

or

   accum << block.yield

it's especially easy if you happen to think of blocks as a  
specialized form of co-routinues, which i happen to.


i have always disliked

   block.call

precisely because you are NOT doing that.  calling a function/method  
whatever implies a call stack and clean environment.  with blocks we  
actually invoke/yield to them in the particular way that makes them  
useful - which is to say that they execute within the closure in  
which they were defined.  in general i think it's highly damaging to  
align the terminology of methods and blocks, since the two operation  
in entirely different ways wrst closures and people generally have a  
very hard time with the concept of a real closure and all it's  
implications.

2cts.

regards.

-a
--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being  
better. simply reflect on that.
h.h. the 14th dalai lama