# Ruby Weekly News 12th - 18th June 2006 **URL:** \ **Category:** ruby-talk\ **Created:** [21 June 2006 10:13 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-weekly-news-12th-18th-june-2006/28350 "2006-06-21T10:13:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tim\_Sutherland1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Tim\_Sutherland1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Tim_Sutherland1)\ **Post date:** [21 June 2006 10:13 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-weekly-news-12th-18th-june-2006/28350/1 "2006-06-21T10:13:06Z")
[http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/20060618.html](http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/20060618.html) Use the link above for a nicer version of this newsletter that's formatted for the web, including links to threads and other sites. You can also subscribe to a newsletter-only mailing list, or to RSS/Atom feeds. Ruby Weekly News 12th - 18th June 2006 > **···** > > ====================================== > >    Ruby Weekly News is a summary of the week's activity for the ruby-talk >    mailing list (and its mirror equivalents the ruby-talk google group and >    the Ruby forum) and the comp.lang.ruby newsgroup. > >    This week's newsletter is brought to you by Tim Sutherland. > >    [Contribute to the next newsletter] > > # Articles and Announcements > >      \* Free eBook: The Little Book of Ruby (ruby-talk) >      ------------------------------------------------- > >        Huw Collingbourne announced The Little Book Of Ruby, a free PDF book >        for newcomers to Ruby. > >        (Huw is also the co-creator of "Sapphire In Steel: Ruby Programming >        with Visual Studio 2005", along with Dermot Hogan. This software adds >        Ruby support into Microsoft's VS2005 IDE, including debugger support. >        It is developed in association with Bitwise Magazine.) > >      \* Article on screen scraping w HTree+REXML, RubyfulSoup, WWW::Mechanize >        (ruby-talk) >      ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > >        Peter Szinek was "investigating the possibilities of screen >        scraping/web extraction/automated web navigation/wrapper generation in >        Ruby", and helpfully wrote up an article comparing the different Ruby >        libraries in this area. > >        "I am planning to write more entries on this topic, involving screen >        scraping from Rails, Gecko to Ruby GTK widget embedding, wrapper >        generation etc." > >        James Edward Gray II: "This was a very good article. Thank you for >        sharing it with us." > >      \* Ruby / RoR Training Camp, Pune (India) (ruby-talk) >      ---------------------------------------------------- > >        Dibya Prakash announced a 5-day training camp for Ruby, and Rails, in >        Pune (India) from 21st - 25th June 2006. The camp is run by Reevik >        Technologies Pvt. Ltd. > >      \* Ruby/OpenSSL samples at RubyKaigi2006 (ruby-talk) >      --------------------------------------------------- > >        Hiroshi Nakamura posted slides and sources from his Ruby/OpenSSL >        presentation at the Japanese conference RubyKaigi 2006. > > # User Group News > >      \* Ruby Beach group in Miami/Fort Lauderdale (comp.lang.ruby) >      ------------------------------------------------------------ > >        Martin Nemzow is looking for people to form a user group in Miami/Fort >        Lauderdale. > >      \* Columbia MD Ruby Codefest (ruby-talk) >      --------------------------------------- > >        The AgileMaryland user group are working together on a project called >        FeedMaster (a user configurable Podcast feed reader) in order to >        improve their agile, Ruby, and Rails skills. > >        Jeff Waltzer posted the meeting schedule for July, and invited all >        those in the area who are interested in Ruby and Test Driven >        Development (TDD) to drop in. > >      \* ruby/rails users in Ireland - interest in forming a user group? >        (comp.lang.ruby) >      ----------------------------------------------------------------- > >        aidanf would like to start a user group in Ireland. >        Could others who are interested please contact him. > >      \* Alaska.rb - Polar bears, igloos and sled dogs... oh my! (ruby-talk) >      --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >        Benjamin Gorlick pondered having an Alaska.rb user group, to meet in >        Anchorage once a month. "It might be a long shot but I thought i'd put >        the possibility of such a group out there if others are interested." > >      \* Milwaukee RUG Meeting July 12th at 5:30 - 7:30 pm (ruby-talk) >      --------------------------------------------------------------- > >        The Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Ruby User's Group have their second meeting >        on July 12th. "The Milwaukee RUG would like to thank SpiderLogic for >        providing space for the meeting." > > # Threads > >   Short But Unique (#83) (ruby-talk) >   ---------------------------------- > >    Ruby Quiz is by Ryan Williams this week. > >    "The quiz would be to develop an abbrev-like module that shortens a set of >    strings so that they are all within a specified length, and all unique." > >   Troubles Extending IRB (ruby-talk) >   ---------------------------------- > >    Matthew Harris is having problems integrating IRB with a GTK+ widget - the >    IRB source code doesn't have enough documentation to get his head around >    how it works. > >    "My ultimate goal is to use the Syntax library to create a custom syntax >    highlighting widget using Gtk::TextView and write a full-fledged Ruby >    programmer's editor and create countless plugins, the first one being the >    IRB GTK console." > >    Is anyone able to help? > >   ruby-dev summary 28637 - 28714 (ruby-talk) >   ------------------------------------------ > >    Kazuo Saito summarised the Japanese list ruby-dev. > >    Ruby 1.8.5 will be released in the middle of August. > >    Mauricio Fernandez comments on this in "ruby 1.8.5 release schedule", >    noting that mid-August is O-bon day in many parts of Japan, >    a "Japanese Buddhist holiday to honor the departed spirits of one's >    ancestors" (Wikipedia). > >    Previous Ruby releases have often coincided with Christmas. > >   RubyGems for inclusion in JRuby (ruby-talk) >   ------------------------------------------- > >    Charles O Nutter says the next release of JRuby (0.9.0) will work with >    RubyGems. "It will also be the first release in which we ship a full >    complement of Ruby's own .rb libraries. In short, it's the first really >    usable release with everything you need included." > >   Absolute paths in $" (ruby-talk) >   -------------------------------- > >    Trans wondered if Ruby 1.8.5 will convert paths in $" ($LOADED\_FEATURES) >    to be absolute instead of relative (like 1.9 does), to avoid some >    situations where require can load a file multiple times. > >    Matz said it was too big a change for a stable release. "Compatibility >    goes beyond anyone's expectation." > >   Unicode roadmap? (ruby-talk) >   ---------------------------- > >    Unicode was a popular topic this week, with around 200 posts. > >      \* Unicode roadmap? >      \* A few good articles on Unicode >      \* Unicode and sprintf method >      \* A plan for another unicode string hack >      \* Ruby/Unicode library > >    It all started with a user complaining that Ruby does not have >    "proper Unicode support". Matz asked him to define what he meant by proper >    support. "Note that 1.8 handles Unicode (UTF-8) if your string operations >    are based on Regexp" (set $KCODE = 'u' at the top of your code, or set the >    KCODE environment variable). > >    Ruby 1.9 will have improved behaviour for string encodings, including >    Unicode ones. > >    Which missing features are causing the most pain? "I don't think it is a >    method to get number of characters in a string. It can't be THAT crucial", >    pondered Matz, adding that he is a non-English writer and doesn't have any >    problems with Ruby's current support. > >    Peter Ertl said that validates\_length\_of in ActiveRecord (and therefore >    Rails) doesn't work with UTF-8 strings since it uses String#length. A >    couple of people mentioned case-insensitive regular expressions not >    working. > >    Julian `Julik' Tarkhanov later noted (in response to a different message) >    "Trust me, when multibyte/Unicode handling is optional, 80% of libraries >    do it wrong." > >    Dmitry Severin listed a combination of libraries that can be used to solve >    most Unicode problems, e.g. jcode, which adds methods like String#jlength >    that are encoding-aware; and unicode\_hack for ActiveRecord which provides >    a String#chars accessor that's codepoint-aware and puts your database >    connections in UTF-8 mode. > >    The thread started talking about UTF-8 vs UTF-16 vs ..., and whether Ruby >    should use one of them for its \_internal\_ string representation (for >    efficiency of splicing etc. in Unicode), and how such a decision would >    affect users of non-Unicode encodings. > >    Tim Bray (who among other things "co-edited the XML spec and helped work >    out its character-encoding issues") said: > >    \> the practical experience is that the code required to unpack a UTF-8 >    \> stream into a sequence of integer codepoints (and reverse the process) >    \> is easy and very efficient; to the point that for "slicing and poking", >    \> UTF-8 vs UTF-16 vs UTF-32 is pretty well a wash. > >    He went on to give great advice on all manner of questions on how Ruby >    should approach Unicode. > >    See also "Closing in on Unicode with Jcode" from a year ago on RedHanded. > >   Ruby and Windows Vista (ruby-talk) >   ---------------------------------- > >    Richard Livsey wondered if anyone had tried running Ruby on Windows Vista >    Beta 2. "Any gotchas?" > >    James Schementi says it's working fine, with the exception of some >    Win32API code, and Barry Burd ran Rails under it a few weeks ago (which >    didn't work for him in Beta 1). > >   Whither Ruby DBI? (comp.lang.ruby) >   ---------------------------------- > >    Someone noticed that Ruby/DBI (database abstraction layer) is only version >    0.10, and wondered why ActiveRecord doesn't use it. It is still actively >    developed? > >    Dave Burt said that it is still active. > >   Mac OS X automation with Ruby (comp.lang.ruby) >   ---------------------------------------------- > >    What options are there for automating Mac OS X applications with Ruby, >    asked Tony. > >    Une bévue pointed out RubyAEOSA for using AppleEvent and OSA Scripting >    Component. > >   [ruby-forum.com](http://ruby-forum.com) (ruby-talk) >   -------------------------- > >    Last week's thread on this topic (too many low-quality posts from >    [ruby-forum.com](http://ruby-forum.com)) had some outcomes: Andreas S. disabled posts for >    unregistered users, added a paragraph with some posting rules, and links >    to the Ruby FAQ and documentation. > >    "I hope this will to improve the quality of postings from [ruby-forum.com](http://ruby-forum.com). >    If you have any better suggestions, please tell me." > >    Later in the thread, a ruby-forum user posted "Why does Ruby insist on >    using a Webboard instead of a regular newsgroup forum?" ... "Lets just >    switch it to a public newsgroup forum and let Ruby flourish. There is no >    need to keep it bottled up like this." > >    This was a good illustration of the misunderstanding many ruby-forum users >    have about it - they don't realise it's a mirror of the ruby-talk mailing >    list. (And the comp.lang.ruby newsgroup, when the newsgroup gateway is up, >    which it isn't at the moment.) > > # New Releases > >   Ruby Reports 0.4.9 (ruby-talk) >   ------------------------------ > >    Gregory Brown released the "Sneakin' Into RoR" edition of Ruby Reports. It >    now has basic Rails integration, with acts\_as\_reportable in your >    ActiveRecord models. > >   Get your mojo back with Mojo Helpdesk (comp.lang.ruby) >   ------------------------------------------------------ > >    Supercobra Thatbytes introduced Mojo Helpdesk, "a simple ticket tracking >    system for small businesses". It is written with Rails. > >   MongrelDay Documentation -- Memoirs Of A Web Server (ruby-talk) >   --------------------------------------------------------------- > >    Zed Shaw wished everyone a happy RailsDay, and announced he'd spent it >    writing "tons" of "documentation for Mongrel" (Mongrel is a web server for >    Ruby applications). > >    Also, "MONGREL IS #2!": RubyGems was the only rubyforge project to have >    more downloads than Mongrel this week. > >    \> BTW, if anyone wonders why I support win32, just ask yourself why the >    \> Ruby One-Click installer is consistently in the top three projects on >    \> RubyForge. Yeah, windows doesn't matter at all. > >   NokiaFS (ruby-talk) >   ------------------- > >    Werner Bohl uploaded the first, alpha, version of NokiaFS. >    "This application is based on fusefs ruby lib and gammu. >    Mounts as user space fs your Nokia phone." > >   ZenObfuscate - for when you really really have to ship a (ruby-talk) >   -------------------------------------------------------------------- > >    Ryan Davis announced ZenObfuscate, a commercial tool for effective >    obfuscation of Ruby source code. > >    "ZenObfuscate is a translator for a fairly large subset of ruby that >    converts your pure ruby code into a dynamically loadable binary". > >   rcov 0.6.0: "differential code coverage", full (faster) cross-references, >   vim integration (ruby-talk) >   ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >    The Ruby code-coverage tool `rcov' now has a "differential code coverage" >    mode that shows you when you've added new code that isn't covered by >    tests. Cross-referenced reports have also been improved - you can click on >    a method in the HTML report to see who called it. > >    Rcov is by Mauricio Fernandez, and he thanks Alex Wayne, Coda Hale and Tim >    Shadel for their bug reports. > >   Announcing MarkaBoo - Creative Commons licensed Rails app for Social >   Bookmarking (comp.lang.ruby) >   -------------------------------------------------------------------- > >    Christian Romney: "After much lobbying, I managed to convince the company >    I work for to release the source of one of our for-profit web propertied >    under a Creative Commons license." > >    MarkaBoo is a social bookmarking tool, featuring a WYSIWYG editor, the >    ability to create bookmarks by email and from mobile phones, import from >    other sites like [del.icio.us](http://del.icio.us), and more. > >   Geocoding Goodness (ruby-talk) >   ------------------------------ > >    Eric Hodel wrote Ruby bindings for the Yahoo, Google and [geocoder.us](http://geocoder.us) >    geocoding services. "And as a bonus, you get a Yahoo! search gem to search >    either the web or for locations". > >    There was an enthusiastic response, and it looks like several people will >    be creating Ruby programs using geocoding soon.