Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
> It was very easy to implement it, but when I tried, I found different
> inconsistency, which is:
> 
>   # encoding: utf-8
>   p :a.encoding  # => #<Encoding:UTF-8>
>   p :p.encoding  # => #<Encoding:US-ASCII>
> 
> means a symbol would have an encoding of which the symbol first
> appears, in this case symbol :a first appears on a file with UTF-8
> encoding, whereas :p appears first for a name to built-in method.
> 
> So rather making symbols to have somewhat unpredictable encoding, I'd
> rather keep them as they are now, despite the inconsistency with
> string encoding.

Very good point; symbols are not necessarily created in the file where 
you use their literal form, and therefore need to have a single encoding 
everywhere. I concur.

- Charlie