&#62; the history of how closures were invented does not support the idea that someone imagined what could be done with them and then invented them for that reason.<p>Most really interesting and disruptive inventions are at least partially accidental. Ideas rarely spring fully formed; instead they appear through cross-fertilization, recombination and serendipity.<p>Once the idea is there, we invent whatever models and languages are necessary to describe and implement it. That process can be comprehensive and all-at-once but more often is iterative and progressive. Even radical innovations that <i>seem</i> to spring fully formed did so after long gestation outside public view.