From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2003-02-04T07:50:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Designing API strings vs symbols?

On Tuesday, February 4, 2003, 9:35:39 AM, ahoward wrote:

> On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Travis Whitton wrote:


> i know exactly what you are talking about : symbols look nice, but strings are
> more inline with cgi programming internals

> why not support both?

>   def method s
>     s = s.intern if String === s   # use symbols internally
>   end

> or

>   def method s
>     s = s.to_s.gsub /^:/, '' if Symbol === s  # use strings internally
>   end


I can't believe that gsub is necessary, and I'm right.

  :frog.to_s == "frog"

Anyway, I prefer symbols to strings as "properties": they display a
greater deal of intention: that the hash will work with these values
as keys and none, or little, other.

I expect it's more efficient, too.

Gavin