On Jul 20, 2006, at 1:48 PM, Ben Johnson wrote:

> I know this is a very simply question, but I've seen many different  
> responses.
>
> Isn't it better to use 'some string' instead of "some string".  
> Because the "" goes through a lot more working interpreting any  
> variable that might be in the string, etc. Where as '' is just  
> literal.

'...' goes through processing too, just less.  \' and \\ are special  
inside '...'.

Is there a time difference though?  Let's ask Ruby:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby -w

require "benchmark"

TESTS = 10_000_000.freeze
Benchmark.bmbm(10) do |results|
   results.report("single:") { TESTS.times { 'My String' } }
   results.report("double:") { TESTS.times { "My String" } }
end
# >> Rehearsal ---------------------------------------------
# >> single:     2.840000   0.010000   2.850000 (  2.861201)
# >> double:     2.870000   0.000000   2.870000 (  2.885730)
# >> ------------------------------------ total: 5.720000sec
# >>
# >>                 user     system      total        real
# >> single:     2.870000   0.010000   2.880000 (  2.891390)
# >> double:     2.850000   0.000000   2.850000 (  2.869507)

__END__

Doesn't look like it.  Guess Ruby is pretty smart about handling this.

End facts.  Begin opinions...

I use to use '...' all the time thinking it was a good programming  
habit.  Unfortunately, it just meant I had to switch to "..." every  
time I belatedly realized I would need some interpolation.  So, as  
I've gotten lazier, I've pretty much switched to using "..." all the  
time.

James Edward Gray II