On Dec 4, 2005, at 1:07 PM, gwtmp01 / mac.com wrote:

> I'd take an educated guess that
> people learning Rails (or any other Ruby framework) struggle with
> trying to understand if symbols are a magic feature of the framework
> or the language or something else.

It's my opinion that Rails complicates this issue quite a bit, with  
it's prevalent use of it's HashWithIndifferentAccess.  Sadly, I think  
this creates more gotchas than it solves.  (I'm not trying to bash  
Rails here, just making an observation.)

> My question to the list is, why?  What is it about Symbols that
> creates such confusion?  I'm getting ready to prepare a two-hour
> "Intro to Ruby" seminar and I'd like to find an approach to Symbols
> that cuts through the confusion.

I always introduce it as an immutable String.  That seems to suck the  
magic out of in.

James Edward Gray II