Rails Enum for Clean and Readable Status Management

Managing statuses in a Rails model can become messy with hardcoded values, but enums provide a clean and readable way to handle them. This snippet shows how to define an enum in an Order model, making it easy to reference statuses with descriptive symbols instead of raw integers. The controller method demonstrates how to transition an order to "shipped" using the built-in enum method. This approach eliminates magic numbers, improves readability, and ensures consistency across your application. One challenge with enums is handling future changes—adding or reordering values requires careful migration planning. However, when used correctly, they significantly improve maintainability and prevent common logic errors.