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copied!<p>It depends on how you define "everything". I personally would never claim that each individual concept in ruby is an object. I suppose there isn't really a good definition to describe how ruby works. I think you just have to accept the way ruby does it, which will become plain as you use it.</p> <p>If you want to see if something is an object, try assigning it to a variable, or calling a method on it. You'll get an error if you try to do that with an operator. A notable exception is methods, which aren't objects but return objects.</p> <p>Note that the concept of an object is somewhat abstract. Two variables can point to the same object. Every object is represented by an <code>object_id</code>. You might think of an object_id like a location in memory. Or, you can think of an object as a house, and multiple address books can contain the house's address.</p> <pre><code># point 2 variables to the same object >> s = t = 's' => "s" >> s.object_id => 70269794388360 >> t.object_id => 70269794388360 # get the object by id (for demonstration only; I don't recommend using this in application code) >> ObjectSpace._id2ref(70269794388360) => "s" # modifying the object. both variables "see" the change >> s << '_' => "s_" >> t => "s_" </code></pre> <p>Continuing the house analogy, appending to a string via <code><<</code> is like bringing a new chair into the house. Everyone who follows their address book to that house (using the address) will see that the house (object) has the new chair.</p> <p>The ruby language designers did not see a reason to allow treating operators like <code>&&</code> as objects. Can you see any reason to allow it?</p>

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