From: Eric Hodel Date: 2013-02-09T09:50:35+09:00 Subject: [ruby-core:52055] Re: [ruby-trunk - Feature #7792] Make symbols and strings the same thing On Feb 7, 2013, at 17:37, David MacMahon wrote: > Just to play Devil's advocate, could that not be separated into two different hashes: one for config options and one for command default arguments? You have given semantic meaning to (the class of) the key. Isn't that akin to treating the primary key of a database record in a non-opaque manner? Two hashes would not be backwards compatible with previous versions of RubyGems. I'm hesitant to change the format of a configuration file and break downgrades between RubyGems versions. It would be more confusing to new users. Now we can tell users "paste '�' into ~/.gemrc to do �" and it will work. They don't need to know anything about ruby or yaml to do this. If matz decides that we should break backwards compatibility in this manner I will change my mind.