Fowler on collections and closures
Martin Fowler blogged on how Ruby deals with collections using blocks (or closures). Its a nice example of some of the power you really miss having in the Java/C# family of languages.
Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of this: [java] List managers = new ArrayList(); for(Iterator iter = employee.iterator(); iter.hasNext();) { Employee emp = (Employee) iter.next(); if(emp.isManager()) managers.add(emp); } [/java]
You could just do this: [java] List managers = new ArrayList(); managers.addAll( employee.find{ |e| e.isManager() }); [/java]
On a related note, is there any difference between a “closure” and a “block” in Ruby?