# A Rails question for Bill Clinton

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-rails-question-for-bill-clinton/111412>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 7, 2007, 3:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-rails-question-for-bill-clinton/111412 "2007-08-07T03:29:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jeffpritchard)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 3:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-rails-question-for-bill-clinton/111412/1 "2007-08-07T03:29:01Z")

</div>

If any of you remember the part of the hearings where he said:  
“it depends on what the meaning of the word is is”

I recently went around in circles for awhile trying to figure out why a  
simple little bit of Ruby I had written wasn’t doing what I expected it  
to.

turns out I had somewhat carelessly initialized one of the terms in my  
bit of Ruby code to “:false” rather than “false”.

In the process of finding this and pondering it for a bit and searching  
various texts for “:false” I came to the realization that I have no  
bloody idea what the heck :false means.

Can somebody help me out here? When (if ever), should I use :false  
instead of false?

Same question for :true vs true? Is the answer the same?

That depends on what the meaning of the word is is…

thanks,  
jp

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jeffpritchard)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 3:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-rails-question-for-bill-clinton/111412/2 "2007-08-07T03:39:46Z")

</div>

Hi –

On Tue, 7 Aug 2007, Jeff P. wrote:

> In the process of finding this and pondering it for a bit and searching  
> various texts for “:false” I came to the realization that I have no  
> bloody idea what the heck :false means.
> 
> Can somebody help me out here? When (if ever), should I use :false  
> instead of false?
> 
> Same question for :true vs true? Is the answer the same?

:false and :true are symbols, just like :x, :hello, and :abc. They  
don’t have any relation to the objects false and true.

David

–

- Books:  
RAILS ROUTING (new! [http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321509242](http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321509242))  
RUBY FOR RAILS ([Ruby for Rails](http://www.manning.com/black))
- Ruby/Rails training  
& consulting: Ruby Power and Light, LLC ([http://www.rubypal.com](http://www.rubypal.com))

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jeffpritchard)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 4:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-rails-question-for-bill-clinton/111412/3 "2007-08-07T04:44:51Z")

</div>

This sounds more like a rails question for Gertrude Stein, to be  
honest.

There is no :there there.

:true and :false have no special meaning in Ruby. They are symbols. If  
you are using them interchangeably with true and false, you’re only  
creating bugs.

Really, symbols are useful wherever you might be using a string over  
and over again as a token to represent some state or other. They are  
more efficient than strings in this context.

google ‘ruby symbols versus strings’ and you’ll get some good results.

MIke.

On Aug 7, 2:29 am, Jeff P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jeffpritchard)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 9:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-rails-question-for-bill-clinton/111412/4 "2007-08-07T09:46:18Z")

</div>

Jeff P. wrote:

> Can somebody help me out here? When (if ever), should I use :false  
> instead of false?
> 
> Same question for :true vs true? Is the answer the same?
> 
> That depends on what the meaning of the word is is…
> 
> thanks,  
> jp

Never… :string is a symbol. Its a technique used by the rails gods to  
indicate that this is just anty old string, but the the name has a  
meaning…

And symbols are reused throughtout the app so :string will only use  
memory for one symbol even if used a 100 times in the app…

true means “true”, :true is a symbol and has nothing to do with the  
boolean value…