From: zverok.offline@...
Date: 2018-01-09T14:01:51+00:00
Subject: [ruby-core:84773] [Ruby trunk Feature#14336] Create new method String#symbol? and deprecate Symbol class

Issue #14336 has been updated by zverok (Victor Shepelev).


> Victor one thing is the idealisation of a feature another thing is its use in the wild.

Yeah, yeah, been told so. I don't know whether it is a right moment to tell it, but just for you to know, I use Ruby since 2004, both for work and hobby project, and stopped idealizing anything in the language... let's say, a while ago. 

Though, I sometimes smile remembering my crusades in ruby-talk (it was pretty active those days, including regular matz's presence) about how `Time#inspect` is so broken and why NOBODY can see this.

> When one thing doesn't match the other there is something broken.
> And that is the case.

Are you not surprised by how the discussion is going, then? 
Two or three users are telling about "**everybody** hates", "**people** are confused", "**WE** need to fix this", and everybody else are either indifferent or "nah, nothing is broken here". Don't you think it may be a sign of misjudging the "brokenness" on your side?

----------------------------------------
Feature #14336: Create new method String#symbol? and deprecate Symbol class
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/14336#change-69490

* Author: dsferreira (Daniel Ferreira)
* Status: Rejected
* Priority: Normal
* Assignee: 
* Target version: 
----------------------------------------
From  the discussions on the three previous issues related to the String vs Symbol subject ([5964](https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/5964), [7792](https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7792), [14277](https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/14277)) there are some conclusions we can assume:
* Current String vs Symbol is not the ideal scenario. See: Matz and Koichi comments.
* Current philosophy is to use Symbols as identifiers and Strings when strings are needed.
* Current situation is that Symbols are being used in many code bases as strings except for strings that really need the String methods.
* Current situation is that we are designing APIs to handle both String and Symbol inputs forcing an overhead of API development.

I propose the deprecation of `Symbol` class and the introduction of `String#symbol?`.

```ruby
foo = :foo
foo.class # => String
foo.symbol? # => true
bar = "bar"
bar.class # => String
bar.symbol? # => false
```

For backwards compatibility transition path I propose:

```ruby
class Symbol
  def self.===(var)
    warn ("Warning message regarding deprecated class")
    if var.class == Symbol
      true
    elsif var.class == String && var.symbol?
      true
    else
      false
    end
  end
end

class String
  def is_a?(klass)
    case klass
    when String
      true
    when Symbol
      self.symbol?
    else
      false
    end
  end
end
```



-- 
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

Unsubscribe: <mailto:ruby-core-request@ruby-lang.org?subject=unsubscribe>
<http://lists.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/ruby-core>