Well, the pun was not about the => operator, but about Ruby becoming "less parseable". As they say: "Only perl can parse Perl" ;-)

So => is the "hashrocket" operator? I can't find any reference to this name besides this: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/152544

I suppose. It goes well with the spaceship operator <=>.

Now we need to find a meaning for |=| so it can be the Tie Fighter operator.