From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju@...>
Date: 2001-03-29T16:17:53+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:13314] Re: hash values can't change??


On Thu, 29 Mar 2001 mjbjr@beaudesign.com wrote:
> According to the ProgrammingRuby docs, a hash value can't change.
> Why is this?
> I've just started to program in Ruby, and I decided that for my first Ruby
> program would process a file of numbers, keeping track how many times each
> number appeared.  A hash seems like the easiest way to go,

This is confusing the two meanings of hash. The original meaning is: a
random-looking code generated from a piece of data in a repeatable manner. 
This is for use in hashtables... which got abbreviated as "hash" (esp. in
Perl). There is the second meaning of the word. 

matju