Comment by Mystery-Machine

I also prefer symbols as keys in hash. It just looks more aesthetically pleasing. :) I think the optimization string vs symbol is negligent in most of the apps. If you need that level of optimization, you should probably switch to Rust.

> If I need to query a hash often, I tend to write a method, and the method then makes sure any input is either a string or a symbol for that given Hash.

This is terrible. This is the exact opposite of what Ruby is trying to achieve: developer happiness. You basically implement "symbol is a string" for hashes (aka HashWithIndifferentAccess).

> But it has. I still use "# frozen_string_literal: true", but if you omit it, the Strings are frozen by default.

This is not the case. If you omit "# frozen_string_literal: true", the strings are mutable, in all versions of Ruby, even in Ruby 4.0, which will be released on 25 Dec.

> But a Symbol is not a String. Not even an immutable String. I understand what you mean (and internally it may be that way already, actually), but it is not a String.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Who cares? What's the difference it makes for you whether symbols and string are interchangeable? Show me one valid use-case where having symbols and strings being different (user[:name] vs user["name"], or attr_reader "name") is useful.