Add Make A String Attribute Easy To Inquire About as a Rails TIL

README.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ pairing with smart people at Hashrocket.
 
 For a steady stream of TILs, [sign up for my newsletter](https://crafty-builder-6996.ck.page/e169c61186).
 
-_1333 TILs and counting..._
+_1334 TILs and counting..._
 
 ---
 
@@ -840,6 +840,7 @@ _1333 TILs and counting..._
 - [Load Records In Batches With find_each](rails/load-records-in-batches-with-find-each.md)
 - [Log SQL Queries Executed By ActiveRecord](rails/log-sql-queries-executed-by-activerecord.md)
 - [Mark A Migration As Irreversible](rails/mark-a-migration-as-irreversible.md)
+- [Make A String Attribute Easy To Inquire About](rails/make-a-string-attribute-easy-to-inquire-about.md)
 - [Make ActionMailer Synchronous In Test](rails/make-action-mailer-synchronous-in-test.md)
 - [Make Remove Column Migration Reversible](rails/make-remove-column-migration-reversible.md)
 - [Manually Run A Migration From Rails Console](rails/manually-run-a-migration-from-rails-console.md)

rails/make-a-string-attribute-easy-to-inquire-about.md

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+# Make A String Attribute Easy to Inquire About
+
+Have you ever been curious why Rails environment checks work the way they do?
+
+```ruby
+> Rails.env
+#=> 'development'
+> Rails.env.development?
+#=> true
+```
+
+What is powering this is
+[`ActiveSupport::StringInquirer`](https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/StringInquirer.html).
+And since it is part of `ActiveSupport`, you can use that functionality
+elsewhere in your Rails code.
+
+Let's look at an example:
+
+```ruby
+class UserWithRole
+  attr_reader :name, :role
+
+  def initialize(name, role)
+    @name = name
+    @role = ActiveSupport::StringInquirer.new(role)
+  end
+end
+```
+
+With that class defined, we can initialize a user and inquire about their role.
+
+```ruby
+> user = UserWithRole.new('Bob', 'instructor')
+#=> <UserWithRole ...>
+> user.role.instructor?
+#=> true
+> user.role.admin?
+#=> false
+> user.role
+#=> 'instructor'
+```
+
+This helper class makes it much cleaner to inquire about the role of a user.
+Notice we don't have to do a string comparison to check if they are an
+instructor, e.g.:
+
+```ruby
+> user.role == 'instructor'
+```