@stevenharman @geeksam @davetron5000 @fxn @kerrizor
4th edition uses the same convention (I just checked), so it's not something I added (hard to remember sometimes…). Here’s the text from the creative commons of the first edition, so somewhere along the line, they took off the parenthetical.
![Within the text, Fred#doIt is a reference to an instance method (doIt) of class
Fred, while Fred. new [In some other Ruby documentation, you may see class
methods written as Fred: : new. This is perfectly valid Ruby syntax; we just happen
to feel that Fred. new is less distracting to read.] is a class method, and Fred: : EOF
is a class constant.](https://cdn.masto.host/rubysocial/media_attachments/files/111/828/794/227/918/462/original/90420f0a33f6f6e5.png "Within the text, Fred#doIt is a reference to an instance method (doIt) of class
Fred, while Fred. new [In some other Ruby documentation, you may see class
methods written as Fred: : new. This is perfectly valid Ruby syntax; we just happen
to feel that Fred. new is less distracting to read.] is a class method, and Fred: : EOF
is a class constant.")
