From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2006-01-01T18:37:01+09:00
Subject: Re: What is the difference between :foo and "foo" ?

Gregory Brown wrote:
> 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?
> 

I'm not certain. I guess it was 1.6.


Hal