rubygems/rubygems.org — pull request #660 by garysweaver (2014-03-11 15:42:39+00:00)
Title: Single quotes are clean, easier to read, and using them is preferred

Ok, bringing single vs double back for consideration.

What rubygems.org is currently using is the style promoted in GitHub's [own style guidelines](https://github.com/styleguide/ruby?utm_source=rubyweekly&utm_medium=email), but I would argue that they are wrong for the following reasons:

According to https://github.com/bbatsov/ruby-style-guide although "The second style (always using double-quotes) is arguably a bit more popular in the Ruby community" it says "The string literals in this guide, however, are aligned with the first style (using single-quotes for non-interpolated strings)." So, the Ruby style guide that is becoming more and more popular is itself using single quotes as the standard.

Both IDea and RubyMine which are both well-used use these inspections which flag non-interpolated strings that are in double-quotes:
http://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/RUBYDEV/RubyMine+Inspections

Historically in Ruby (going way back), single quotes have been the preferred form for non-interpolated strings. If there were no use for them, they would have been deprecated, and they have not been. I know that from a speed of syntax processing standpoint that it does not matter which is used, however use of single-quotes in bash, perl, etc. it is clear to many what they are and what they are used for. To dismiss their use and applicability for Gemfile by providing an example to copy and paste into the Gemfile that use double-quotes is basically ignoring not only Ruby itself, but its heritage and family of languages.

Though it is argued that if you used double quotes, you don't later have to go back and change them when you require interpolation, so it is some sort of energy and time-saving technique. But, i'm not sure that is correct. With the most commonly used key layout, you have to press shift and the quote key to enter a double quote vs. only pressing the quote key. If you compound that additional time and energy to press the shift key, double quotes may actually waste time and energy to type unnecessarily.

Most importantly and one of the biggest reasons to accept this change is that single quotes are a better choice for a document such as Gemfile in which almost always every string will be non-interpolated and supports single-quote, because each additional mark in the quote is a visual distraction. Making this change will at once clean up rubygems.org, every Gemfile that it affects, and perhaps much, much more Ruby code around the world where that additional quote mark is causing visual distractions.

Thanks for your consideration.