On 12/30/05, Chad Perrin <perrin / apotheon.com> wrote:
>     0. :symbol is to "symbol" as 1 is to "1"
>        Insofar as it is accurate to say that an integer is an atomic
>        numeral, it is likewise accurate to say that a symbol is an
>        atomic string, or so it seems to me.
...
> Am I wrong?
>

No, you're right.
The string "123" is a character sequence, and can be picked apart
character by character. The integer 123 is atomic - it cannot be
picked apart on the object level.
Likewise, the string "abc" is a character sequence, and can be picked
apart. The symbol :abc is atomic.

A further similarity between (fixnum) integers and symbols is that
there will always be only one object representing the integer 123, and
only one object representing the symbol :abc. Strings are basically
byte arrays, there can be several strings containing the same
elements.

So I guess you can say that symbols gives a fixnum-style atomic
representation of any given string.

jf