From: Devin Mullins <twifkak@...>
Date: 2005-12-30T12:26:08+09:00
Subject: Re: What is the difference between :foo and "foo" ?

Devin Mullins wrote:

> Austin Ziegler wrote:
>
>> The Symbol is just a name.
>
> Er... a thing that /has/ a name. (That being, Symbol#to_s.)

OK, well, I RTFA, and sorry for blatantly contradicting what was an 
intentional choice of words (and not, as I had thought, a slip-up) 
without reason. Anyways, to quote you:

>No. :wilbur is an object. It has *one* property, itself. You can ask for
>integer or string representations, but :wilbur's value is :wilbur and
>there will only ever be one :wilbur.
>
Calling it a "name" is just another analogy. Its name is its String 
representation, just as Module#name == Module#to_s (for non-singletons). 
Rather, :jazz is :jazz is :jazz. There is no reducing it to other concepts.

Devin
Yeah, I know, total 540.