From: Steve Litt <slitt@...>
Date: 2005-12-31T00:35:11+09:00
Subject: Re: What is the difference between :foo and "foo" ?

On Friday 30 December 2005 08:06 am, Christian Neukirchen wrote:
> Steve Litt <slitt@earthlink.net> writes:
> > By the way, your article is obviously needed, and you should probably
> > refine it as time goes on. The fact that we had so many responses that at
> > least in part contradicted each other indicates to me that symbols are
> > perhaps the most surprising element of Ruby, which is otherwise not a
> > surprising language at all.
>
> That just means you didn't dig deep enough into Ruby (yet). ;-)

Then neither did the 20+ other people, some long time Ruby users, who couldn't 
put forth an explanation clear enough to settle the issue amongst the 
majority.

With all the controversy, including some piping to a killfile, the issue isn't 
*my* depth of digging, it's either *everyone's* depth of digging, or it's an 
issue of :symbols being a particularly surprising element of Ruby. I haven't 
heard this level of disagreement about blocks, methods, iterators and the 
like. Heck, for two cents I'll document it myself!

SteveT

Steve Litt
http://www.troubleshooters.com
slitt@troubleshooters.com