From: Jonas Pfenniger <zimbatm@...>
Date: 2007-10-08T22:28:10+09:00
Subject: Re: Why does def return nil?

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2007/10/5, David Flanagan <david@davidflanagan.com>:
> Since class returns the value of the last expression, changing def to
> return a Symbol or UnboundMethod object would end up affecting the
> return value of most class definitions as well, since most consist have
> a def as their last expression.

Another argument against using Symbols is that you will grow the
symbol hash table, even if you only use a fraction of them. Since that
table can't be garbage-collected, it can be quite problematic.

The little attached script collects the unique method names :
ruby-1.8.6 : 619 unique method names
and with rubygems : 1547

-- 
Cheers,
  zimbatm

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