Re: Another example for syntactically lightweight closures

[Jean-Claude Wippler <jcw@...>]

On 5 Feb 2008, at 07:47, Miles Bader wrote:

>  (1) The "super lightweight so I can stick it in a function call with
>      an almost trivial expression and it won't look clumsy".  [...]
>  (2) As a simple way to add new control structures, by using
>      smalltalk/ruby-like "blocks" to make function calls look sort of
>      like control-structure.
[...]
> So my vote is "yea" on a lightweight syntax like (1) -- I use that  
> kind
> of thing all the time, and I'd love a more svelte way to express it --
> but "nay" on a "control-structure" lambda like (2), unless somebody  
> has
> a much better idea than those which have been proposed so far...
> [there's always metalua and the like for people that really want (2),
> after all]

The second case can be used for more than just control structures.   
Passing predicates to a collection method, for example. In Ruby:

	mydata.sort { |a,b| a.upcase > b.upcase }

	mydata.collect { |x| x.shoesize > x.age/2 }

In Lua you can pass functions to do that, but the syntax is not as  
compelling.

-jcw