From: Robert Dober <robert.dober@...>
Date: 2007-05-15T23:41:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Why was the "Symbol is a String"-idea dropped?

On 5/15/07, Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@gmail.com> wrote:
<lots of interesting stuff snipped>
>
> It seems that the HashWithIndifferentAccess class added by Rails in
> ActiveSupport, which allows symbols and strings to be used
> interchangeably as keys, doesn't actually take advantage of this since
> it uses symbols converted to strings as the actual keys rather than
> the other way around.  This provides a bit of syntactic sugar, without
> getting either the performance or space advantages of using symbols.
Is this whole String vs. Symbol idea motivated by Rails stuff?
I just do not know Rails but I would guess it is a dangerous thing if
paradigms that are useful in an application framework - even if it is
such a Great One as Rails - are to be applied to a General Purpose
Language.

I will rephrase OP's question now, why the h[ae]ck did the Core team
think about unifying Strings and Symbols in the first place ???
That is for sure something very interesting.
<more stuff snipped>

Robert
-- 
You see things; and you say Why?
But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?
-- George Bernard Shaw