Enmerable/Iterable Comparison

I've been revisiting the way C#, JavaScript and Java approach Iteration (Enumeration in C# jargon), so I'll dump here a short summary.

The basis is the same for the 3 languages. In C#/Java you have a class that implements the IEnumerable/Iterable protocol providing you access to an IEnumerator/Iterator object that takes care of the iteration. In JavaScript your object implements the Iterable protocol by featuring a [Symbol.iterator] property that returns an object conforming to the Iterator protocol.

The main difference stems from the methods provided by the Iterator (Enumerator) object. Most times you should not be concerned about these differences, as you will be just using the specific loop structure provided by each language:
foreach (it in enumerable)
for(o : iterable)
for (variable of iterable)
But if you are using your iterable differently you should take some more things into account.

C#. You advance your position in the Enumerator by calling the MoveNext method, that returns false if it has passed the end of the collection. To access the current element you use the Current property, that will return "an undefined value" (which is quite an open and confusing idea) if you are either before the first element (you've never called MoveNext) or after the last element (the last MoveNext returned false)

JavaScript. Your iterator just provides you with a next method, that returns a [done, value] pair and moves to the following position.

Java. The iterator provides a hasNext method, that returns false if you are positioned at the last element, and a next method that moves to the next position and returns its value. If you were already at the last element, next will throw a NoSuchElementException.

These iterators present similarities and differences. C# and JavaScript are pretty similar. As we've seen both of them have a method (MoveNext/next) that advances the iterator if possible and returns a boolean indicating if it has reached the end. If the end has not been reached, in C# we access the current element via the Current property while in JavaScript that value has also been returned in the next method. I like the idea of being able to access the current element through a property.

Java is quite a bit different. I find the haveNext method rather strange. It tells you if there is a next element, but does not gather it (in C# MoveNext does not return the next element as such, but is supposed to assign it to the field backing the Current property). So after the hasNext you will have to call next to really obtain the element. On one side, this means that if there are several threads accessing the iterator you have to put hasNext and next inside a critical section, on the other side, depending on your iterator, checking for the existance of a next item and obtaining it could be costly operations, so there is a sort of redundancy. The iterator could internally obtain and cache the value when checking for existence of the value, but maybe the caching is not the intended behaviour. So all in all I find the Java design a bit odd.