Talk:Blocks (C language extension)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Blocks (C language extension) article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Computer science Start‑class Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computer science, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Computer science related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Computer scienceWikipedia:WikiProject Computer scienceTemplate:WikiProject Computer scienceComputer science

Start

This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Things you can help WikiProject Computer science with:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests :
- Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Computer science, computing, and Internet
Cleanup :
- Computer science articles needing attention
- Computer science articles needing expert attention
Copyedit :
- Computing
Expand :
- Computer science
Infobox :
- Computer science articles without infoboxes
Maintain :
- Timeline of computing 2020–present
Photo :
- Find pictures for the biographies of computer scientists (see List of computer scientists)
- Computing articles needing images
Stubs :
- Computer science stubs
Unreferenced :
- WikiProject Computer science/Unreferenced BLPs
Project-related :
- Tag all relevant articles in Category:Computer science and sub-categories with {{WikiProject Computer science}}

Apple Inc. Start‑class Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Apple Inc., a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Apple, Mac, iOS and related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Apple Inc.Wikipedia:WikiProject Apple Inc.Template:WikiProject Apple Inc.Apple Inc.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This page should not mention Grand Central Dispatch more than mentioning that it optionally uses blocks. The many GCD references only serve to further confuse the two. --Devnevyn (talk) 08:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, what does this mean?

Unlike closures in pure functional languages, blocks do not capture all of their surrounding state; 
they only capture copies of their surrounding stack variables.[5]

What state is NOT captured? Globals are captured by reference, and all locals are captured also by reference in a stack block, by copy for a non-__block variable in a heap block, and by owning reference in a __block variable in a heap block. Unless I'm missing something, the statement is wrong, so please elaborate. --Devnevyn (talk) 08:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with both of these criticisms, I've removed the latter passage entirely and clarified the former. I've removed some non-sequiturs ("Blocks introduce a derived type into the language." Fabulous!) I also removed the misleading reference to C++ lambdas. C++ lambdas differ from blocks in far more than syntax. A comparison would be appropriate, but it must compare more than just the superficial. This article still needs a rewrite/expansion, but it's now more accurate and less misleading. -76.254.63.45 (talk) 00:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relation to GCC nested functions

The article should probably also describe the differences with GCC's Nested functions: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.0.4/gcc/Nested-Functions.html#Nested-Functions I went to look it up, thinking that they were the same, but then realized that nested functions, unlike closures, cannot be called after the containing scope has exited.

--Blaisorblade (talk) 10:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've integrated your text above into the article. Thanks! -- The Anome (talk) 11:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

3 years later, I have to say this part adds nothing to the article. If you never thought that these concepts were the same then it is confusing why the nested functions are being brought up. I am not sure why one person's previous flawed understanding means everyone has to see it in the article. - 70.36.139.84 (talk) 13:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relation to C++ Lambda functions in GCC and other mainstream compilers

Looks like the mainstream of compilers for C/C++ are about to make "Blocks" or "Lambda" functions part of the 4.5 of the GCC compiler.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/349899/what-c-compilers-are-supporting-lambda-already

Lambda is part of the C++0x (C++ language definition update) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B0x