Issue #9047 has been updated by jamonholmgren (Jamon Holmgren). I would be okay with your idea, Rodrigo, although it's less consistent (if you look at my first code block in the description). It would result in symbols looking like this: { :'symbol': 'v' } Not the end of the world, though. Would you then also allow other literals to use the colon, not just strings / symbols? { [ 1, 2, 3 ]: 'v' } I realize these are edge cases, but it's worth considering. ---------------------------------------- Feature #9047: Alternate hash key syntax for symbols https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/9047#change-42575 Author: jamonholmgren (Jamon Holmgren) Status: Open Priority: Normal Assignee: Category: Target version: =begin In Ruby, if you can create a symbol with ((|:"symbolname"|)), it seems consistent to allow moving the colon to the right side in a hash and dropping the hash rocket (=>). { :str => "v", # symbol str: "v", # symbol :"str" => "v", # symbol "str": "v", # should also be a symbol } It would look like this: h = { "mykey": "value", "otherkey": "othervalue", regular_symbol: "value" } String and other non-symbol keys would retain the hash rocket syntax to avoid ambiguity. { "string" => "v", MyObj.new => "v", @my_var => "v" } Thoughts? =end -- http://bugs.ruby-lang.org/