From: John Gabriele <jmg3000@...>
Date: 2006-09-20T04:42:55+09:00
Subject: Re: => A newb question

On 9/19/06, Dominic Son <dominicson@gmail.com> wrote:
> why did matz choose to use '=>' to declare things instead of just making
> them all '=' ?

'=>' isn't for assignment, per se. It's the syntax you use when defining a hash:

irb(main):001:0> h = {'foo' => 3, 'bar' => 1.05457e-34}
=> {"foo"=>3, "bar"=>1.05457e-34}
irb(main):002:0> h['bar']
=> 1.05457e-34

> he cut our time marginally by letting us not put a ';' at the end of a
> line, but now we have to  put a '>' with '='...

Not sure what you're talking about there.

> (i'm gonna guess a = operator is for assigning a value, whereas a => is
> for assigning symbols? )

Well, I guess with "=>", you're assigning a value to a key in a hash. :)

Remember, when you're passing a hash into a method you may often omit
the curlies.

---John