# Ruby Weekly News 7th - 13th August 2006 **URL:** \ **Category:** ruby-talk\ **Created:** [17 August 2006 10:58 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-weekly-news-7th-13th-august-2006/30056 "2006-08-17T10:58:59Z")\ **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:** [17 August 2006 10:58 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-weekly-news-7th-13th-august-2006/30056/1 "2006-08-17T10:58:59Z")
[http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/20060813.html](http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/20060813.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 7th - 13th August 2006 > **ยทยทยท** > > ======================================= > >    Ruby Weekly News is a summary of the week's activity on the ruby-talk >    mailing list / the comp.lang.ruby newsgroup / Ruby forum, brought to you >    by Tim Sutherland. > >    [Contribute to the next newsletter] > > # Articles and Announcements > >      \* blade will be stopped >      ----------------------- > >        The [ruby-talk.org](http://ruby-talk.org) mailing-list archive is down at the moment. Use >        [nagaokaut.ac.jp](http://nagaokaut.ac.jp) instead. > >      \* Ruby Cookbook now in PDF format >      --------------------------------- > >        Last week, many people said they would like a PDF version of the Ruby >        Cookbook. > >        Good news, reports Leonard Richardson, "O'Reilly is now selling the >        Ruby Cookbook as a downloadable PDF for 50% off the cover price. AFAIK >        this is the first full-length O'Reilly book to be sold as PDF, and if >        it goes well, other O'Reilly books should follow." > >      \* Ruport Day has begun! >      ----------------------- > >        Ruport Day came and went (a day to make improvements to the Ruport >        project, complete with prizes). Gregory Brown writes "The overall >        winner, who deserves massive props is James Healy, who introduced SVG >        Graph support, as well as a sizeable chunk of documentation to the >        project". > >        Ibroadfo was second, Eric Pugh third, followed by James Edward Gray >        II. > >        Gregory would like to get in contact with the maintainer of >        SVG::Graph, to talk about how it could be packaged for Ruport (e.g. a >        gem). > >      \* Ruby Inside offers $100 prize for blogging about Ruby between >      --------------------------------------------------------------- >        August 12-19 >        ------------ > >        Ruby Inside is offering a $100 prize to a random blogger who creates >        and posts an interesting post about Ruby and/or Ruby on Rails in the >        forthcoming week, along with a $15 second prize to a random person who >        links to the contest. As a aggregator of Ruby content, Ruby Inside is >        suffering during the summer lull, so perhaps this could get some new, >        interesting content out into the wild. > >      \* OS X Leopard shipping with Rails! >      ----------------------------------- > >        Daniel Schierbeck reported that MacOS X Leopard will include Ruby, >        RubyGems and Rails. Apple have been shipping Ruby with their operating >        system since around 2002, but in the past there have been old versions >        or little issues that caused problems for Rails. For this release, >        Apple have been communicating with the Rails core team to ensure >        everything's done right. > >        DHH blogs: > >        \> It's been no secret that Apple is held in very high regard by the >        \> Rails community. Every single Rails Core contributer is running on >        \> Apple and the vast majority of Rails developers are too. To see >        \> Apple acknowledge this and return the favor is very rewarding. > >        People are particularly pleased that Apple's using RubyGems, so >        updating Rails and installing other Ruby libraries will work as >        Rubyists expect. > >      \* Microsoft Phasing in Support for Dynamic Languages on .Net >      ------------------------------------------------------------ > >        An interesting article at [eWEEK.com](http://eWEEK.com) about dynamic languages on >        Microsoft's .NET platform, with lots of quotes from IronPython creator >        Jim Hugunin and John Lam (of RubyCLR fame). > >        "People say they love a language like Ruby because it has this >        simplicity and this dynamism." > >      \* Tim Bray (Sun Microsystems) on Ruby >      ------------------------------------- > >        Tim Bray, the Directory of Web Technologies at Sun Microsystems (and >        recent contributor to the Ruby community) wrote a mostly-positive >        article "On Ruby" describing his initial experiences. > > # User Group News > >      \* [mkerb.org](http://mkerb.org) - Milwaukee RUG Meeting [August 9] >      ---------------------------------------------- > >        The Milwaukee RUG (Wisconsin, U.S.) had their latest meeting on August >        9. Thanks to SpiderLogic for providing space for the meeting. > >      \* Phoenix Ruby User Group August Meeting >      ---------------------------------------- > >        James Britt: "The Phoenix Ruby Users Group will hold its August >        meeting on Monday, August 14, 2006, at 6:15pm. The meeting will be >        held at facilities graciously provided by Cyclone Commerce." > > # Threads > >   Ruby stable branch is....1.9? >   ----------------------------- > >    Is Ruby 1.9 the stable branch? No, 1.8 is still the latest stable branch, >    but 1.9 will become a stable branch in the future. > >   RubyConf in Second Life? >   ------------------------ > >    John Lam had an idea of holding a virtual equivalent to RubyConf in >    `Second Life' (SL), a "a privately-owned, partly subscription-based 3-D >    virtual world" [wikipedia], run by Linden Labs. > >    Charles O Nutter said there is already a SL rubylist community that meets >    every first and third Thursday of each month. "Feel free to stop by, we're >    interested in having more folks attend, and there's a nice big >    presentation screen and plenty of seating. There's even an in-world IRB >    extension to play with Ruby while you're there." > >   Einrichtung einer deutschsprachigen Ruby-Newsgroup (bitte lesen!) >   ----------------------------------------------------------------- > >    Christian Janoff proposed creating the newsgroup "de.comp.lang.ruby" for >    German-language Ruby discussions, but Josef `Jupp' Schugt suggested >    "de.alt.ruby" instead, as it's much easier to create a newsgroup under >    "de.alt" than the general "de" hierachy. > >    Stefan Scholl said that the lack of traffic in "de.comp.lang.misc" was a >    bad sign for the proposed group, and James Britt linked to >    gmane.comp.lang.ruby.german. > >   LDAP >   ---- > >    barjunk asked which LDAP libraries people prefer, and the answer was >    Net::LDAP. > >    Austin Ziegler pointed out that it's the only pure-Ruby LDAP library. The >    alternative is ruby-ldap, a binding to a C LDAP library. > >    Francis Cianfrocca added: "Get Net::LDAP and read the Rdoc for >    Net::LDAP#open. As Austin said, this library is very disciplined (and >    documented) about how it uses the network (unlike the native-C libraries), >    and it's pure Ruby- no compiler needed on any platform." > >   why doesn't Array include Comparable >   ------------------------------------ > >    Ara T. Howard asked why Array, which does has a meaningful \<=\> (spaceship) >    operator, doesn't include the Comparable mixin. Comparable adds \<, \>, \<=, >    between? etc. methods. > >    A couple of people agreed that it would be useful. > >   Proper Case (#89) >   ----------------- > >    Elliot Temple was behind last week's Ruby Quiz, to write a method that >    correctly capitalises the words in English sentences. > >   Pen and Paper (#90) >   ------------------- > >    This week's Ruby Quiz asks you to write a program to play a simple >    pen-and-paper game, involving a grid of numbers. The quiz was written by >    Eric Duminil. > >   FSF Award. Guido / Larry won it, why not matz? >   ---------------------------------------------- > >    Gregory Brown nominated Matz for the 2006 FSF Award for the Advancement of >    Free Software, noting that Guido and Larry (Python, Perl creators >    respectively) have previously received it. > > # New Releases > >   Mongrel 0.3.13.4 Pre-Release -- PID Files Working >   ------------------------------------------------- > >    Zed Shaw asks people to try out the latest Mongrel pre-release. "This >    release is pretty close to becoming official." > >    "Mongrel is a fast HTTP library and server for Ruby that is intended for >    hosting Ruby web applications of any kind using plain HTTP rather than >    FastCGI or SCGI. It is framework agnostic and already supports Ruby On >    Rails, Og+Nitro, and Camping frameworks." > >   Pandora 0.4.3 Release >   --------------------- > >    Wiki-engine Pandora has a new search function, common-book sidebar, >    site-wide menu, bug fixes and more, said Julian I. Kamil. > >    He also explained what makes it different from other Wiki engines: > >    \> it uses a `book' metaphor for managing its contents. As a Pandora user, >    \> you would publish books, with chapters, and pages. As the publisher, you >    \> decide who can author the books contents, who can edit them, and who can >    \> view them. All of these and the associated user management functions are >    \> built into the system. > >    See 'The Ruby Bookshelf' for an example. > >   Dr Nic's Magic Models >   --------------------- > >    Dr Nic's Magic Models dazzled the crowd. This is a library that lets you >    access your ActiveRecord objects with even less work than before. > >    Actually, there's no work now. You don't even need to declare your model >    classes. > >    Say you have an empty Rails project, with a database having >    `people', `groups' and `membership' tables. Just open up a console and >    start manipulating your objects: > > \>\> person = Person.find(1) > =\> \"Williams", "firstname"=\>"Nic", > "id"=\>"1", "email"=\>"drnicwilliams@gmail.com"}\> > \>\> person.memberships > =\> [\"1", "id"=\>"1", "person\_id"=\>"1"}\>] > \>\> person.groups > =\> [\"Magic Models Forum", "id"=\>"1", "description"=\>nil}\>] > >    The above example, taken from the Magic Models homepage, demonstrates that >    even has\_many :through relationships are automatically discovered. > >   Zerenity 1.0 >   ------------ > >    "Zerenity is an almost clone of Zenity for Ruby. It allows for the easy >    creation of simple graphical dialogs from a Ruby script." (Using >    Ruby/GTK2.) > >    It's written by Farrel Lifson. The 1.0 version adds a significant number >    of unit tests. > >   RFuzz 0.7 -- Win32, Bug Fix, Browser Begins >   ------------------------------------------- > >    Zed Shaw put out another RFuzz release. > >    "RFuzz is an HTTP client library that you can use in combination with a >    random junk generator to conduct fuzzing tests against any HTTP server (or >    web app). It's not limited to fuzzing, as the HTTP client can work as a >    Net/HTTP replacement, and you can easily just make regular requests." > >   RubyPhone project updated >   ------------------------- > >    Gregarican: "This project ports the TSAPI (Telephony Services API) library >    to Ruby so you can create CTI applications using the power, fun, and >    flexibility of Ruby." > >    There is now a CSTA Simulator, to simulate a PBX. > >   rcov 0.7.0 (code coverage for Ruby) >   ----------------------------------- > >    The rcov code-coverage tool now has an-aggregate option, to merge results >    from multiple runs, and some bugs were fixed, Mauricio Fernandez >    announced. > >   open4-0.5.0 >   ----------- > >    Ara T. Howard added timeouts to open4, a version of the open method to " >    open child process with handles on pid, stdin, stdout, and stderr: manage >    child processes and their io handles easily." > >   Ruby Reports 0.4.21, 0.4.23 >   --------------------------- > >    Gregory Brown optimistically released the "Probably Broken" Edition of >    Ruby Reports. "This is the 8th release since the start of Google's Summer >    of Code". > >    This development release removes the old data-structures that were exposed >    to Ruport designers. > >    It was indeed broken, and version 0.4.23 followed, fixing Ruport::Query. >    There is now a proof-of-concept Invoice Engine, and a tool to create >    skeleton config files etc. > >   Rails 1.1.6: Stronger fix, backports, and full disclosure >   --------------------------------------------------------- > >    David Heinemeier Hansson announced Rails 1.1.6, with a better fix for the >    recent security issue around routing. Only 1.1.x releases were vunerable >    (1.0.x are ok), and the fix has been backported to each affected release. > >    The fix breaks third-party engines, but there is an interim workaround >    that you can use until these are updated (just block certain URLs). > >    There is now a rails-security mailing list (announcements only), and a >    #rails-security IRC channel on Freenet. > >   Cerberus 0.2.0 >   -------------- > >    Anatol Pomozov: "Cerberus is a Continuous Builder software for Ruby. >    Cerberus could be periodically run from scheduler and check if application >    tests are broken. If it happens then Cerberus will send notification to >    project developers." > >   Ruby In Steel 0.75 >   ------------------ > >    Huw Collingbourne: "This release includes significantly enhanced colour >    coding and collapsing for both Ruby and Rails (RHTML) files and provides >    support for debugging support for Ruby In Rails. Previous versions only >    provided debugging for standard Ruby projects. The Ruby In Steel IDE is >    hosted within Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 (Standard edition or >    better)."