From: Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@...>
Date: 2006-01-01T18:28:20+09:00
Subject: Re: What is the difference between :foo and "foo" ?

On 1/1/06, Hal Fulton <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> wrote:
> James Britt wrote:
> >
> > After trying to follow all this, I've come to see Symbols as being more
> > akin to numbers than strings.
> >
> > They're numbers with a human face.
> >
>
> Thanks, James. That's great.
>
> Incidentally, I was out of town for over a week, so I have just now
> read (most of) this 100+ post thread in a single sitting. This is
> not an experience I recommend.
>
> I had to reply here, though I held back many times.
>
> If you are an old enough user of Ruby, you remember when a symbol
> "really was" a number. There was no Symbol class. If you did a
> puts of :foo, you got a number out. :foo could be added to another
> number, and basically always acted like a number.

That's interesting.  What version did the Symbol class get added in?