My day job is currently focused on porting an Eclipse RCP ("Rich Client Platform") Java application -- essentially a WORA desktop app -- to a Struts2/JSP/Hibernate webapp. We're using a fair amount of JavaScript (via Prototype and Scriptaculous, along with some home-grown code) for the things you'd normally use JavaScript for. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
One of the home-grown JavaScript bits that I've been working with recently is a text-box filter. You type in the text you want to filter on in a text-box, and the table rows (or li's, or what-have-you) that don't contain that text get hidden, leaving only those that pass the filter. Again, pretty standard stuff.
The fun started when I wanted to add the ability to filter not just on text, but on a time range chosen from a dropdown menu, like, say, "show me only the results that were posted within the last two hours". I wanted to re-use the existing filter code as much as possible, because a lot of it is exactly what I need, but I needed a way to specify comparing two times (the time of each post versus the time range selected) instead of the default behavior of checking for a match on the input text.
(Author's Note: Those of you who are familiar with Ruby probably already know exactly where I'm going with this. Bear with me while I build the suspense a little longer).
If the filter were written in Java (pre-closures Java, anyway <wink/>), I would have no choice but to jump through some serious refactoring hoops -- implement the new behavior, probably as a new set of methods, and then add in some way to designate which behavior I wanted either by introspecting on my arguments, or by an explicit switch, or...yuck. And if I were only aware of Java idoms, there would be nothing stopping me from taking the same approach in JavaScript.
Fortunately, I spent the bulk of last year doing some serious Ruby programming, which forced me to get used to the idea of blocks. Equally fortunately, I've taken some time to get familiar with idiomatic JavaScript programming, and learned that functions are first-class datatypes in JavaScript, which means they can work pretty much like blocks do in Ruby.
And so I was able to solve my problem with minimal impact to the existing codebase, by adding a parameter to the constructor (an optional block/function, defaulting to the existing "match" behavior), and making the code that does the actual filtering call that anonymous function rather than explicitly calling "match". One optional parameter and one (tiny) layer of indirection later, and I've got a solution that will never need extending again. The next time I come up against a type of filter that I haven't already implemented, I can do so on-the-fly, by building a function that implements the exact comparison behavior I want and passing it to the generic filter.
Do yourself a favor: stop hating on Ruby because you're irritated by all the attention it gets. Stop assuming that if you learn idiomatic Ruby you're going to have to turn in your "Java ROOLZ, Ruby DROOLZ" badge and your "I (heart) static typing" secret decoder ring. Free your mind, and the rest will follow. And whatever other inspirational pop lyric you care to apply here.
Learning another language (doesn't have to be Ruby; could be Python, or Lisp, or Erlang, or Scala, or...) can only increase your problem-solving capability. And, after all, isn't that what we're all about? Solving problems?
