From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2003-01-23T23:09:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Definition: iterator

On Thursday, January 23, 2003, 9:43:19 AM, Hal wrote:

> This is general enough that it even covers
> what I call the "non-iterating iterator."
> This comes in one or two varieties, but the
> most common/intuitive is the "open-close" 
> kind. See File#open for an example, or 
> Mutex#synchronize, or the newer form of
> Dir.chdir (1.7.x).

> Cases like this make the term "iterator" 
> somewhat inappropriate, of course... but
> no one seems to complain about it.

I certainly complain about it, but limit my complaints to muttering
under my breath.  I like the term 'coroutine' for describing the
general case of a method accepting a block.  And for the "open-close"
usage, I use the term 'transaction'.

Gavin