From: Stephen Waits <steve@...>
Date: 2006-03-09T09:49:00+09:00
Subject: Re: My Ruby talk @ work..

Jeff Cohen wrote:
> 
> Looks great, Steve.  Thanks for publicizing it.

Thanks.

> I'm wondering, how much confusion was there over symbols?  Were the 
> dynamic-language folks more comfortable with symbols than the others? 
> This is one thing I sometimes find is hard to explain to someone who is 
> new to Ruby.

I explained it to them that as a programmer we'd basically use symbols 
very similarly to how we use enums in C/C++.  I showed how they're 
commonly used as keys in hashes.

I explained that each symbol has a unique ID, and that Ruby uses symbols 
to look stuff up within its own system.  I believe I had given them 
several ".send(:symbol)" examples at that point.

I showed them :symbol.to_i, and :symbol.class too.

I *think* they understood it.  I didn't notice any difference between 
the dynamic experienced and the rest.

--Steve