From: Fritz Heinrichmeyer Date: 2001-11-17T01:09:38+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:25460] Re: Symbols, and their use as hash keys matz@zetabits.com (Yukihiro Matsumoto) writes: > > Symbols are immediate numbers. We can compare them in one machine > operation, instead of byte by byte comparison like strings. > this is an explanation for speedup, not for slowdown. -- Fritz Heinrichmeyer mailto:fritz.heinrichmeyer@fernuni-hagen.de FernUniversitaet Hagen, LG ES, 58084 Hagen (Germany) tel:+49 2331/987-1166 fax:987-355 http://www-es.fernuni-hagen.de/~jfh