From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2009-12-22T12:49:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Symbols vs. constants?

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 8:15 PM, Young H. <armywide@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Gennady Bystritsky
> <Gennady.Bystritsky@quest.com> wrote:
>> Constants are variables that can be assigned to any object (only once).
>
> Hi,
>
> It seems to me a constant can be changed during the runtime.
>
>> Z="hello"
> => "hello"
>> Z=1234
> (irb):11: warning: already initialized constant Z
> => 1234
>> Z
> => 1234
>
> So does it mean, it can be changed, but not encouraged?
>

Yes.

You might say that Ruby is an example of what we called Finagle's law
in engineering school back n the 70s.  Finagle's law states that "all
constants are variable!"


-- 
Rick DeNatale

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