# Ruby Weekly News 12th - 18th September 2005 **URL:** \ **Category:** ruby-talk\ **Created:** [20 September 2005 11:21 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-weekly-news-12th-18th-september-2005/20943 "2005-09-20T11:21:40Z")\ **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:** [20 September 2005 11:21 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-weekly-news-12th-18th-september-2005/20943/1 "2005-09-20T11:21:40Z")
[http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/20050918.html](http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/20050918.html) Ruby Weekly News 12th - 18th September 2005 > **···** > > ------------------------------------------- > >    Ruby Weekly News is a summary of the week's activity on the >    ruby-talk mailing list \<=\> comp.lang.ruby newsgroup, >    brought to you this week by Tim Sutherland and Christophe Grandsire. > > Articles and Announcements > -------------------------- > >      \* Registration for RubyConf 2005 is now CLOSED! >      ----------------------------------------------- > >        David A. Black: "Registration for RubyConf 2005 is now closed. We have >        reached full capacity, based on paid registrations." > >        \> Any registration fees we receive from this point on will be refunded >        \> to you, minus processing fees if any. > >      \* Job site >      ---------- > >        Jason Toy announced a website created by himself and John Li for >        posting and finding Ruby related jobs. > >        [Jobs.Rubynow.com](http://Jobs.Rubynow.com) was created using Rails and PostgreSQL. > >        James Edward Gray II: "How funny! You just stole the Ruby Quiz idea >        for tomorrow." > >      \* Article: The Fine Art of Computer Programming >      ----------------------------------------------- > >        Christophe Grandsire linked to an article from the Free Software >        Magazine entitled "The Fine Art of Computer Programming". > >        \> Since fun in programming is a recurrent theme among Rubyists, and >        \> there is quite a culture among us of clear, readable code, I thought >        \> it might interest some people here. > > User Group News > --------------- > >      \* The 2nd Hamburg.rb meeting in September >      ----------------------------------------- > >        Hamburg.rb are meeting more often, with September 21st being the >        second one of the month. > >      \* Boston.rb Meeting Tonight! >      ---------------------------- > >        "Tonight" = September 13th, so if you're a Bostonite who is hearing >        about this for the first time then you'll have to wait for the next >        one. > >      \* LA Ruby Meetup >      ---------------- > >        Joshua IT Smith announced that work was being done to organise an LA >        Ruby group. The first meeting is scheduled for October 13, 2005. > > Threads > ------- > >   detaching required scripts >   -------------------------- > >    MiG's application used .rb files to represent `plugins' that could be >    loaded and unloaded, with each one containing a module definition. > >    The application implemented unloading by calling remove\_const to remove >    the module, however attempts to then re-require the plugin would fail, >    because Ruby, noting that the file has already been required, won't load >    it again. > >    Lyndon Samson pointed out that you could just use load instead of require >    in this case. The latter un-conditionally loads the file without worrying >    about whether the file has already been seen. > >   ruby-dev summary 26862-26956 >   ---------------------------- > >    Masayoshi Takahashi summarised the Japanese list ruby-dev, "in these >    days." > >    Inside is Enumerable#count with block, String tainting, and a patch from >    nobu to return an Enumerator for methods like Array#each when they are >    called without a block. > >   ruby and aop >   ------------ > >    Ever written code like this? > > ### > class OneTreeHill \< TheDomain >    alias old\_tree tree > >    def tree >      warn("No longer any tree") >      old\_tree >    end > end > ### > >    Did you feel wrong and dirty? Dirty and wrong? Had nightmares about >    someone else also wrapping the same method in the same way? > >    gabriele renzi reminded us of an article by Mauricio Fernandez from 2004 >    that shows how to do it in a nicer way, by using instance\_method and >    define\_method. > > ### > class OneTreeHill \< TheDomain > >    prev = instance\_method(:tree) > >    define\_method(:tree) do >      warn("No longer any tree") >      prev.bind(self).call >    end > > end > ### > >    Even better, with Module#wrap\_method from the Ruby Facets project: > > ### > require 'facet/module/wrap\_method' > > class OneTreeHill \< TheDomain >    wrap\_method(:tree) do |old| >      warn("No longer any tree") >      old.call >    end > end > ### > >    The thread discussed several points related to AOP (Aspect-Oriented >    Programming) in Ruby. > >   gsub(/Ads by Goooooogle/, "PayPal DONATE").suggest? >   --------------------------------------------------- > >    x1 thought it would be better to have a `donate' option on >    [http://www.ruby-lang.org/](http://www.ruby-lang.org/) rather than the current Google ads, and >    personally offered to give USD$100 if this was done. > >    James Britt said that it was possible to donate at Ruby Central. > >    David Brady: > >    \> I know all ads are annoying, but Adsense seems to be the least obtrusive >    \> of the lot. I have no idea what [ruby-lang.org](http://ruby-lang.org) is making but all of my >    \> sites typically make $US5-20 per month per thousand daily visitors. All >    \> of my sites are running donations as well; adding Adsense had no effect >    \> on donation rates. So if [ruby-lang.org](http://ruby-lang.org) is pulling 20k daily visitors, >    \> that's somewhere around $US200 of "free money" to help pay for hosting. > >    James Britt: "Does [ruby-lang.org](http://ruby-lang.org) get 20K daily visits?" > >    Gavin Kistner: "Hell, does [ruby-lang.org](http://ruby-lang.org) get 20k \*monthly\* visits?" > >    How much money is gained from the ads? How many people would be willing to >    make a donation if it meant getting rid of the ads? > >   Ruby Jobs Site (#47) >   -------------------- > >    James Edward Gray II's Ruby Quiz for the week: > >    \> When I first came to Ruby, even just a year ago, I really doubt the >    \> community was ready to support a Ruby jobs focused web site. Now though, >    \> times have changed. I'm seeing more and more posting about Ruby jobs >    \> scattered among the various Ruby sites. Rails has obviously played no >    \> small part in this and the biggest source of jobs postings is probably >    \> the Rails weblog, but there have been other Ruby jobs offered recently >    \> as well. >    \> >    \> Wouldn't it be nice if we had a centralized site we could go to and scan >    \> these listings for our interests? > >    Develop such a site, using whichever Ruby tools you choose. > >   implode function? >   ----------------- > >    Julian Leviston asked if Ruby had anything like PHP's implode function. > >    It would work like: > > ### > z = %w[yeah cool mad awesome funky] > z.implode(', ') # -\> 'yeah, cool, mad, awesome, funky' > ### > >    "I guess I'll just go write one." > >    No need, thanks to Array#join: > > ### > z = %w[yeah cool mad awesome funky] > z.join(', ') # -\> 'yeah, cool, mad, awesome, funky' > ### > >    Florian Frank noted that String#\* can also be used here: > > ### > z = %w[yeah cool mad awesome funky] > z \* ', ' # -\> 'yeah, cool, mad, awesome, funky' > ### > >    This led Martin DeMello to say that its a shame there is no String#/. Of >    course, Florian then popped back in with "Ha, now there is", making / an >    alias for split. > >   Get to the Point: Ruby and Rails Presentation Slides >   ---------------------------------------------------- > >    John W. Long and Ryan Platte's uploaded their introduction to Ruby and >    Rails presentation slides that they used at the Chicago ACM. > >    "Comments and suggestions are welcome. We would like to present this again >    in the future, so it would be good to clarify things a little." > >   website screen scraping with Mechanize or Rubyful Soup >   ------------------------------------------------------ > >    Dan Kohn was trying to do some website "screen scraping" - i.e. write a >    script that acts like a web browser, submitting forms and extracting data >    from web-pages. > >    He had come across WWW::Mechanize and Rubyful Soup which looked useful, >    however he couldn't find much in the way of examples or documentation for >    them. > >    (Rubyful Soup is a HTML parser that is tolerant of incorrect markup, so >    can work with HTML that WWW::Mechanize chokes on. Lyndon Samson mentioned >    an alternative called Tidy, which transforms invalid HTML into something >    more parsable.) > >    \> Dan: My ultimate goal is to create a series of screen scrapers that are >    \> able to access airline websites (including entering username and >    \> password, dealing with redirects, etc.), find my mileage and recent >    \> flights, parse the data, put it in some variables, and save it to MySQL >    \> (with rails). > >    Dan did find one example using WWW::Mechanize, but his modification of it >    didn't work. Michel Martens pointed out his error, and Dan was then able >    to run the example successfully. > >   Ternary operator request >   ------------------------ > >    Robert Mannl asked for feedback on the idea of adding a ternary operator >    expression in cases of methods ending in a question mark, in order to >    allow: > > ### > some\_method? a : b > ### > >    instead of: > > ### > some\_method? ? a : b > ### > >    Although Alex Fenton called it a "cute idea", he and others were of one >    mind to say that it would be extremely difficult to parse, both for Ruby >    and for humans. David A. Black summed it up nicely: > >    \> I also think the two ?'s in question, though both ?'s, are really >    \> semantically quite distinct. > >    and: > >    \> There's always `if' 🙂 > >    Ara T. Howard then showed how something similar (but not identical) could >    be achieved, using traits: > > ### > harp:~ \> cat a.rb > require 'traits' > > trait 'foo' =\> true > > puts( foo ? 'foo' : 'not foo' ) > puts( foo? ? 'foo' : 'not foo' ) > > foo false > > puts( foo ? 'foo' : 'not foo' ) > puts( foo? ? 'foo' : 'not foo' ) > > harp:~ \> ruby a.rb > foo > foo > not foo > not foo > ### > >    The trick is that both foo and foo? are defined. > > New Releases > ------------ > >   RType-0.2 >   --------- > >    Yuichi Yoshida wrote a new Ruby interpreter, in Haskell. > >    gabriele renzi: "this is really cool, thanks for sharing it. But I wonder >    why did you choose to write a ruby interpreter in Haskell?" > >    \> Yuichi: The strange feature of Haskell absorbed me, especially lazy >    \> evaluation did. What a good sound, lazy! 😉 >    \> >    \> I wanted to write somthing and learn more about Haskell, and Ruby >    \> interpreter is a good theme to satisfy my desire. > >   RedCloth 3.0.4 -- Humane Text for Ruby >   -------------------------------------- > >    whytheluckystiff polish'ed humane markup parser RedCloth. > >    "Lists that were throwing exceptions are gone. Escaping of stray angle >    brackets. Single- and double-quote directional wrongness is made aright." > >   World's 1st Hamster-Powered Mud Server! (in Ruby) >   ------------------------------------------------- > >    Jon A. Lambert announced the "World's 1st Hamster-Powered Mud Server! (in >    Ruby)". Presumably, until now Hamster-Powered Mud Servers had been written >    in other languages. > >    Read the announcement to see why Nick Faiz described it as "the best >    software release announcement email I've ever read!" > >   gmailer 0.1.0 >   ------------- > >    Park Heesob's gmailer library can fetch emails, use file attachments, get >    contact lists, invite people, edit labels, preferences, star and archive >    messages. > >    The API is slightly more high-level now, with methods returning objects of >    classes like Conversation and Contact instead of hashes. > >   Zero to Rails >   ------------- > >    Ryan Davis: "From absolutely nothing to a running rails app in under two >    minutes. SQL not required." > >    All due to "one part OmniGraffle 4, one part applescript, one part ruby, >    and a dash of animosity towards SQL". (OmniGraffle is a diagramming tool >    for MacOS X.) > >    "Awesome, disarming, astonishing!" tittered Piergiuliano Bossi. > >   Pimki 1.8.092 >   ------------- > >    Assaph Mehr fixed bugs in Pimki, "The Wiki-based PIM to GetThingsDone". > >   acgi-0.1.0 >   ---------- > >    Ara.T.Howard released the second version of acgi, "a drop-in replacement >    for ruby's built-in cgi", but with persistence, speed and "no apache >    modules" (unlike fastcgi). > >    Benchmarks with Apache showed that acgi was around five times faster than >    plain CGI, but FastCGI was a further three times faster. > >    Dan Janowski: "My applause to you on trying to replace FastCGI. I gave up >    on it after inexplicable weirdness began to set in." > >    He also gave some ideas for improving acgi's performance. > >   ritex 0.1: WebTeX -\> MathML >   --------------------------- > >    William Morgan happily announced the first version of ritex, a tool for >    converting WebTeX into MathML. > >    "WebTeX is an adaptation of TeX math syntax for web display", while MathML >    is the standard, low-level and verbose, way of representing maths symbols >    on the web. > >    \> Ritex is based heavily on itex2mml, a popular TeX math to MathML >    \> convertor-so much so that the default correct answer to unit tests is to >    \> do whatever itex2mml does! > >    Unlike itex2mml, ritex is written in Ruby and supports macros. > >   KirbyRecord 0.0.0 >   ----------------- > >      Logan Capaldo: I am proud(?) to announce the first actual release of >      KirbyRecord. KirbyRecord is an ORM layer for the very cool pure ruby >      database, KirbyBase. > >   eric3 3.7.2 released >   -------------------- > >    Eric3 is a Python and Ruby IDE written in Python and PyQt. It comes with >    "all batteries included". The new 3.7.2 release fixes some bugs.