[byroot]

No they’re not.

String can be interned in Ruby, but it’s always possible for an equal string that is not interned to also exist. Hence interned strings can’t benefit from the same optimization than symbols.

You can first compare them by pointer, but on a mismatch you have to fallback to comparing content. Same for the hashcode, you have to hash the content.

[theoldgreybeard]

I'm talking about as a user of the language, not as a language designer. I have an unpopular opinion about this, but symbols are error prone and these optimizations are ultimately not worth it.