I've just started trying to find these discussions and read them because I haven't been at all clear on the difference, so I'll get back to you on what does work.
However, although I don't meant to pick on szpak specifically, he did provide a sterling example of what doesn't work, at least for me, and I have worked professionally as a writer of documentation....
"A symbol in Ruby is similar to a symbol in Lisp
I don't know Lisp. Or Java. Unless you know that your reader is already familiar with your reference, it's not helpful to use it.
in that the symbol is a name, or more precisely a named atom
"Atom" is undefined here. I know what an atom is. My desk is made of them. This is apparently some other kind of atom...
which can also respond to a request to expose itself as a number (to_i) or a string (to_s).
Neither names nor atoms respond to requests in my world. The use of "expose" is even more confusing.
In this case a Ruby symbol is similar to a Lisp keyword symbol
Is a Lisp keyword symbol different than a Lisp symbol?
(which is also prefixed by a colon (:), at least in some versions of Lisp).
Sometimes?
However, in Lisp a symbol has much greater functionality.
For example, a Lisp symbol can also be bound to a value, a property list, or a function.
I definitely don't need to know what *else* a Lisp symbol can do. I would like to know what Ruby symbols *are* bound to, if not values, property lists, or functions. (I'm going to guess "string.")
In briefest, my understanding of symbol in Ruby is that it is an interned string used as a name
("interned" meaning that it is entered into memory as a single, atomic entity, a monad -
there is just one of it, with a single pointer to it).
Aha. I do know what a string is, and the definition of "interned" is supplied. However, the definition
isn't very helpful. We're back to "atomic," with the implication that "normal" strings aren't atomic.
Then there's "monad," but that's also undefined.
Again, this isn't intended to be a criticism of szpak specifically. He just provided a nice short example of what I see over and over again on this list. I don't know Lisp. I don't know Java. I don't know Smalltalk. I don't know PHP, or Python, or Perl, or C (plain, plussed, objective, or sharp). It's nice that there are lots of people on the list who do, and if you're trying to explain some part of Ruby to them, by all means, use common references. But don't assume we newbies know this stuff until we tell you.
Me, I know SQL, and AppleTalk, and REXX, and Modula-2, and Pascal, and real (not Real) BASIC, with line numbers. I decided I needed to learn a new language, something I could script and web and just generally do whatever I needed to do in. I picked Ruby.
Do I expect the myriad references to Python and Java to suddenly vanish from the list? Of course not. I'm just saying, if there's some big discussion about threading that uses Java as the counterexample, don't be surprised if I ask that same question a week later.
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On Dec 30, 2005, at 5:39, Devin Mullins wrote:
Hey, all you lurkers:
Have any of the explanations in the thread (What is the difference between :foo and "foo" ?) helped you understand symbols?
). It's hard to pinpoint any