I think the idea is so that while symbols can prevent collisions, they can also make it impossible to set a value. The registry allows you to set the value by

I think the idea is so that while symbols can prevent collisions, they can also make it impossible to set a value. The registry allows you to set the value by name, but by doing this you have to keep in mind that there might be a name collision and allows you to handle the collision. Before there was no way tell that a name collision even happened.