alt Hacker NewsI think they were talking about spiral shank nails, not ring shank. It has a twisted grove along the shank of the nail, sort of like an extremely course thread.
I've seen these used to assemble wooden palettes (they are VERY hard to remove). A search on Home Depot reveals they may be used for certain types of siding as well.
'coarse'
I built a house with them. You really want to check twice if you're putting them in where you want them because getting them out is - as you noted - annoyingly difficult. But they're very nice for large surfaces that are going be battered by the wind, they're much longer than your typical screw and working with them is very fast.