From: Edward Faulkner <ef@...>
Date: 2005-12-30T02:09:40+09:00
Subject: Re: What is the difference between :foo and "foo" ?

--pZs/OQEoSSbxGlYw
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Dec 30, 2005 at 01:50:14AM +0900, Chad Perrin wrote:
> If you tell me that Ruby symbols are basically just Lisp symbols,
> implemented in an OOP way by way of a symbol class, I think I could
> probably come up with a succinct and clear explanation of what a Ruby
> symbol is that would remove a lot of the ambiguity, but so far I still
> don't know if that's what a Ruby symbol actually is.

Yes, I think Ruby symbols and Lisp symbols are the same thing.  The
issue is just slightly obscured because Ruby glosses over the Lisp
concept of "quote" by building the quote syntax directly into the
symbol-literal syntax.  :mysymbol means the same thing as Lisp's
'mysymbol, except the whole thing is treated as a single literal
token, instead of parsing to (quote mysymbol).




--pZs/OQEoSSbxGlYw
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: Digital signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFDtBg1nhUz11p9MSARAmawAKDCJvF7LEGbQV5YfO5Bp+rmtTx5jgCdFj6P
F34IR6crkRP6h0kdbKFxgFY=
=1RoP
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--pZs/OQEoSSbxGlYw--