I sure like languages that have symbols as a first class data type, distinct from strings.
@peterseibel @kellan yes, but doesn't the reason to use 'foo not "foo" boil down to "efficiency as a key"?
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@avibryant@kellan Well, back to my earlier comment, if I want to distinguish between names and strings, no. -
@avibryant@kellan Lisp is a perfect example of this: the evaluation rule for symbols is different than the evaluation rule for strings. -
@peterseibel@kellan Common Lisp is a bit special; symbols in most languages don't have plists or special eval rules. -
@avibryant@kellan Well, eval rules could be in your own DSL. E.g. tweteed this because I'm working on gg.js.
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@peterseibel@kellan it also signals "this is a key not a value" but I think that's a nice side-effect of efficiency-driven conventions. -
@avibryant@peterseibel@kellan Lua interns strings, so they can be used efficiently as keys. C# has an opt-in string intern mechanism, too.
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@avibryant@peterseibel@kellan: also immutability for those languages where strings are wrappers over mutable buffers - 1 more reply
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@avibryant@peterseibel@kellan No, not if you want to create macros. Strings can't replace symbols when defining macros.Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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