On Jul 25, 2007, at 4:43 PM, dblack / wobblini.net wrote:
> I think it's useful to
> know that you're passing references around:
>
>   a = "abc"
>   b = a
>   b << "def"
>   a          # "abcdef"
>
> vs. immediate values (symbols, integers), though of course it does all
> indeed converge on objects.
>

I go even farther and simply think of symbols and integers to also be
references.  Within that context, the literal 1 is simply a textual
representation of a reference to the object that behaves like the  
integer 1.
The fact that the Ruby interpreter doesn't actually allocate memory for
the object itself is just an implementation detail.

Gary Wright