I'm a LOL programmer (wannabie)

In my new job, it seems I'll be writing ruby (on rails).

I've been trying the language in my spare time, and it seems a fairly good compromise between Perl and Smalltalk.

Except a couple of features or idioms I saw, everything else was quite intuitive or easy to understand (at least coming from Perl/Smalltalk).

+ Sigils do exist, but denote scope oposed to type.
+ __DATA__
+ '=' can be part of a method name. And there's some magic involved there. def method=(attr) can be used as an assignment (sintactically) as parens are optional.
+ Integer class can be expanded or subclassed.

Here are the codes I wrote to grasp the language. These are the usual examples I write in every language I try to learn:

- a program to center paragraphs.
- guessing number
- Network with hosts that pass messages one to the other.

	#!/usr/bin/ruby
	#http://perl.plover.com/qotw/r/001
	def center(arr)
	max= arr.max{ |a,b| a.length <=> b.length }.length
	arr.each do |e|
	puts " " * ((max-e.length)/2) + e
	end
	end
	center(STDIN.read.split("\n"))

view raw center.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	#!/usr/bin/ruby
	#number guessing game
	class Guess
	def initialize()
	@sol = 1 + rand(100);
	puts "la sol es #@sol" #yeah, cheating
	end
	def try(my_guess)
	if Integer(my_guess) == @sol
	puts "bien!"
	return true;
	else
	puts "Too "+ (Integer(my_guess) < @sol ? "small" : "big")
	return false;
	end
	end
	end
	a = Guess.new
	my_guess= STDIN.readline.chomp
	while not a.try(my_guess)
	my_guess= STDIN.readline.chomp
	end

view raw guess.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	#!/usr/bin/ruby
	class Network
	def initialize
	@hosts = Array.new()
	end
	def attach(node1, node2)
	node1.next = node2
	end
	def add_new_node(nodeName)
	add Host.new(nodeName)
	end
	def add(node)
	@hosts.push(node)
	attach(@hosts[-2],@hosts[-1]) if @hosts.length > 1
	attach(@hosts[-1],@hosts[0])
	end
	def to_s
	@hosts.each do |e| puts e end
	end
	end
	class Host
	attr_accessor :next , :name
	def initialize(name)
	@name = name
	@next = nil
	end
	def pass_message(message)
	puts "a #{message.to}"
	puts "jo soc #{self.name}"
	if message.to.eql?(self.name)
	puts "he rebut el missatge #{message.text}"
	else
	@next.pass_message(message)
	end
	end
	def to_s()
	"I'm #{@name} and I'm connected to #{@next ? @next.name : 'noone'} "
	end
	end
	class Printer < Host
	end
	class Workstation < Host
	def send(message_text,to)
	m = Message.new(message_text,to)
	self.pass_message(m)
	end
	end
	class Message
	attr_accessor :text, :to
	def initialize(text,to)
	@text=text
	@to=to
	end
	end
	n = Network.new
	n.add_new_node('first')
	n.add_new_node('second')
	n.add(Printer.new('printer'))
	ws = Workstation.new('ws')
	n.add(ws)
	puts n
	ws.send("hola",'second')

view raw network.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Here is a link that I found useful about ruby patterns and idioms.
http://scriptlandia.blogspot.com/2009/02/design-patterns-in-ruby.html