Question

Im new to “real” Javascript:ing and I know understand more of functional programming.

It seems that in Javascript you get the best from both worlds: functional and object oriented programming.

But in Ruby, you don’t have first class functions (function as a datatype).

Does this mean that Javascript embraces the best of the both worlds while Ruby only embraces object-oriented programming style?

Answer 1

Ruby does have first class functions. What makes you think it doesn’t?
From wikipedia: A language that has first-class functions is one where:

The language supports constructing new functions during the execution of a program, storing them in data structures, passing them as arguments to other functions, and returning them as the values of other functions.

You’re probably hung up on the fact that Ruby’s Procs/Lambdas need to be invoked via a call() but this does not impact on their firstclassness. Common Lisp lambdas are invoked with a funcall as well and I do not recall anyone claiming Common Lisp does not have first class functions.