Symbols
Overview
- A symbol looks like :this_is_a_symbol
- starts with a colon :
- can be used in similar places as a string but tells the interpreter and programmers that it means “the thing named :this_is_a_symbol” rather than text
- In ruby, we prefer symbols over hardcoded globals or strings. They’re very lightweight.
Try typing this in IRB
:rwanda
:ruby_on_rails