Why Func<T,bool> instead of Predicate<T>?

Question

This is just a curiosity question I was wondering if anyone had a good answer to:

In the .NET Framework Class Library we have for example these two methods:

public static IQueryable<TSource> Where<TSource>(
    this IQueryable<TSource> source,
    Expression<Func<TSource, bool>> predicate
)

public static IEnumerable<TSource> Where<TSource>(
    this IEnumerable<TSource> source,
    Func<TSource, bool> predicate
)

Why do they use Func<TSource, bool> instead of Predicate<TSource>? Seems like the Predicate<TSource> is only used by List<T> and Array<T>, while Func<TSource, bool> is used by pretty much all Queryable and Enumerable methods and extension methods... what's up with that?

Answer 1

While Predicate has been introduced at the same time that List<T> and Array<T>, in .net 2.0, the different Func and Action variants come from .net 3.5.

So those Func predicates are used mainly for consistency in the LINQ operators. As of .net 3.5, about using Func<T> and Action<T> the guideline states:

Do use the new LINQ types Func<> and Expression<> instead of custom delegates and predicates