Re: [Python-ideas] enums vs symbols

Thanks for that. I think that when I consider the cases that I don't like the idea of using strings, using a proper enum makes better sense anyway. On Feb 12, 2013, at 1:58 PM, Guido van Rossum wrote:

I don't know Ruby symbols, but if they are anything like Lisp symbols, they are completely different. Lisp symbols are interned strings -- Python just uses strings (and if they happen to be interned you get a modest speedup). This is for things like:

if hasattr(x, 'foo'): x.foo()

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 1:55 PM, wrote:

...

Forgive me, a lurker, but I wonder: how does an enum differ in usage from something like a Symbol from ruby, other than that an enum is required to be declared beforehand?

I'm definitely a python guy, but the idea of identifiers that are their own value interests me, and seems like it could have some overlap with the concept and usage of enums.

If there's not much difference in usage between enums and symbols apart from declaration, perhaps we could make the declaration optional and combine the concepts? This would certainly require parser changes.

Ryan

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