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foreach keyword or ForEach extension method?

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Is this a question of taste, or something more serious? [Warning: this post won’t change your life J]

I found myself writing the following extension method yet again the other day;

public static void ForEach<T>(

    this IEnumerable<T> source,

    Action<T> action)

{

    foreach (T item in source)

    {

        action(item);

    }

}

This means I can write simple (contrived) code like the following;

entities.ForEach<ObjectDefinition>(o => o.DeleteDbRecord());

This will enumerate all my ObjectDefinition objects and call DeleteDbRecord on each. But why didn’t I just write it like this?

foreach (ObjectDefinition o in entities)

{

    o.DeleteDbRecord();

}

I’ve raised this because some code I’ve seen (and written!) has reached a saturation point, where lambdas, extension methods, and other concepts have taken over - meaning the code looks more like it was written in LISP than C#.

But does that matter?

A quick search shows there are all sorts of discussions about this online, which is interesting. It is actually quite an old discussion now!

Originally posted by Simon Ince on 27th of April 2009 here.