From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2006-01-06T01:04:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Demystifying Symbols.

On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 09:54:35PM +0900, dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
> 
> Well, Ruby has variables and constants, and symbols aren't either of
> them :-)  I guess they're constant, informally, but they're not
> constants, as defined by the language.  I wouldn't call them variables
> in any sense.

I guess that, if you want to compare them to "variables" (things that
you create, define, and change at whim) and "constants" (things that you
create, define, and -- hopefully -- never change), you could think of
symbols as "forevers": from the point of view of the programmer, you
never really create or define the things, you just discover them waiting
there for you, already in the form they will always have.  Heh.

There are data types, and there are data archetypes, I suppose.

That's just another broken analogy, though, and ultimately I keep
wanting to come back to some technical details related to internal hash
table behavior.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]

This sig for rent:  a Signify v1.14 production from http://www.debian.org/