From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2009-12-22T23:34:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Symbols vs. constants?

On Dec 22, 2009, at 12:59 AM, Gary Wright wrote:

> On Dec 22, 2009, at 12:59 AM, Walton Hoops wrote:
> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: James Edward Gray II [mailto:james@graysoftinc.com]
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure we should go quite THAT far.  It is used in the wild for
>>> features people do like.
>>> 
>>> There are also ways to do it without a warning.
>> 
>> Really? For what purpose?  I can't think of any instance that you'd
>> need to change a constant where a variable wouldn't suffice (but of
>> course that doesn't mean it doesn't exist).
> 
> I think Rails uses it to reload class definitions.  That is to say that a particular constant, such as ArticleController, will refer to different class objects as the class definition changes.

That's right.  This is why you don't have to constantly restart the server in development mode.

James Edward Gray II