Making WooMe

Being a Scheme guy I’ve always thought Closures to be a vital part of programming. I guess they weren’t considered a big deal by James Gosling as he famously didn’t include them in Java (though you can do a hack and they are coming in latest Java).

ActionScript3 on the other hand, which normally stands naked except for a rather flimsy bedsheet painted with the words I AM JAVA, does have closures. So I could do this today:

// Is the time in d greater than now - the seconds?
private function isTimeGreater(d:Date, seconds:int):Boolean {
    var t:Date = new Date();
    t.setTime(t.getTime() - seconds);
    return d.valueOf() > t.valueOf()
}

// Makes a function that limits an array to a number of mins
private function withinFunc(limitMins:int):Function {
    return function(obj:*, index:int, array:Array):Boolean {
        return isTimeGreater(obj, 1000 * 60 * limitMins);
    };
}

// ... some time later ... use the function
var newest:Array = report_so.data.report.filter(withinFunc(limitScanMins));

Credit where credit’s due, I say. And this is nifty. It makes the whole thing just a little more bearable. More like sticking pins in my ears, as opposed to my eyes.