From: Philip Mak <pmak@...>
Date: 2002-10-17T14:48:16+09:00
Subject: Strings or symbols?

When working with a record that has various fields represented using a
hash, do you prefer strings or symbols? Why?

With strings, it's like this:

    person = {
        :name => "John Doe",
        :age => 20
    }

With symbols, it's like this:

    person = {
        'name' => "John Doe",
        'age' => 20
    }

Symbols are one character shorter to type (:name v.s. 'name'). But,
then I have to convert between symbols and strings sometimes using
String#intern or Symbol#id2name. I do a lot of CGI programming; if a
script like this is called:

add_person.rhtml?name=John%20Doe;age=20

then the "name" and "age" are given to me as strings, so I have to
call String#intern in order to convert them into symbols first.