Is Hash Rocket deprecated?
hash, hashrocket, ruby, ruby-1.9, syntax
Solution
The author of that blog post is being overly dramatic and foolish, the `=>` is still quite necessary. In particular:
You must use the rocket for symbols that are not valid labels: `:$set => x` is valid but `$set: x` is not. In Ruby 2.2+ you can get around this problem with quotes: `'$set': x` will do The Right Thing.
You must use the rocket if you use keys in your Hashes that aren't symbols, such as strings, integers or constants. For example, `'s' => x` is valid but `'s': x` is something completely different.
You can kludge around the above in the obvious manner of course:
h = { }
h[:'where.is'] = 'pancakes house?'
# etc.
but that's just ugly and unnecessary.
The rocket isn't going anywhere without crippling Ruby's Hashes.
Problem
The well-cited RIP Hash rocket post would seem to imply the Hash Rocket syntax (`:foo => "bar"`) is deprecated in favor of the new-to-Ruby JSON-style hash (`foo: "bar"`), but I can't find any definitive reference stating the Hash Rocket form is actually deprecated/unadvised as of Ruby 1.9.