From: Jim Freeze <jim@...>
Date: 2003-06-02T04:06:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Advantages of Symbols over constants

On Monday,  2 June 2003 at  0:13:21 +0900, John Johnson wrote:
> One of my concerns with symbols is they spring into exsistence on their own,
> ie.
> 
> def foo(op)
>     case op
>     when :Bar
>         puts "Bar"
>     else
>         puts "a bug!"
>     end
> end
> 
> foo(:bar)
> 

I see your point. If the code was supposed to be 
:bar instead of :Bar, then that would be a bug that
would not have happened if an enum were used.

I'm not saying you should never use enums, but
I may not choose to use enums, even in this case.
Instead, I would write a unit test that ensured correct
code.

I suppose deep down, this goes back to a static
vs dynamic typing issue. No?

-- 
Jim Freeze
----------
Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no
guarantee of eventual success.