You could use grep() instead of filter(). Sorry for not including it in my first post... Granted, it still suffers the problem of lacking the shortcut, but pro

You could use grep() instead of filter(). Sorry for not including it in my first post... Granted, it still suffers the problem of lacking the shortcut, but programming new useful abstractions is part of our job anyway. The point is to make it readable. I am skeptical that this example proved the thesis: "What is there you can't do with lambdas such that you need to add blocks?" unless the point was that you have the "benefit" of performing a goto/return out of a block and not out of a strictly scoped lambda. It seems like a step backward to me. For this example anyway, the better abstraction would be any() -- to treat the set of gestures as a queryable entity and to react to that query. I haven't played with ruby in years, so forgive my syntax mistakes, but I do not think people would find i = 0 something_or_other.each do |e| return i if null(e) i++ end to be a better abstraction than return e.length Come to think of it, you have another return path downstream in that function anyway (not 'close'). return jQuery.any(collection, tester) ? 'close' : 'other value'; I am still open to the possible usefulness of blocks.