From: Chris Pine <chris@...>
Date: 2006-01-07T12:57:21+09:00
Subject: Re: Demystifying Symbols.

On 1/5/06, Dave Howell <groups@grandfenwick.net> wrote:
> Note that the neologism
>         :symbol is to "symbol" as 1 is to "1"
> makes not one iota of sense unless one already understands all the
> complex ramifications of those quote marks.

This is why writing a decent tutorial is so hard.  Unless you really
talk to lots and lots of newbies, it's so easy to say totally useless
(well, useless in this context) things like this.

(Don't get me wrong:  I actually found it a delightful analogy! 
Brilliant, in fact!  But I've been using symbols happily for years. 
An analogy like this feels more like an inside joke than an
explanation.  :)

Chris