From: Bill Kelly Date: 2018-01-08T14:37:48-08:00 Subject: [ruby-core:84742] Re: [Ruby trunk Feature#14277] Improve strings vs symbols ambiguity danieldasilvaferreira@gmail.com wrote: > > I would say `:a.value == ���a���.value # => true` But one has the > symbol syntax as a property and the other not. Syntax seems to have been mentioned a number of times during this discussion, as though syntax were the distinguishing characteristic between symbols and strings. Symbols are conceptually distinct from strings, and the syntax used to create either has no bearing on this fundamental distinction. In Smalltalk, string literals are created with syntax 'foo' and symbols are created with syntax #bar. The syntax isn't what makes them conceptually different entities. [ https://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual/html_node/Two-flavors-of-equality.html ] A statement suggesting :a and "a" are equal, apart from one having "the symbol syntax", reads rather strangely to one accustomed to thinking about the differences between strings and symbols as being independent of their syntax. Regards, Bill Unsubscribe: