This is a continuation of my previous post, based on new information.

I shall quote Chalain directly:

It's a combination of two things.
1. Ruby allows you to drop the semicolon if a statement parses to a complete expression. So the 3+2 gets parsed as an expression.
2. "Everything returns" in Ruby. Like most languages, you can accumulate return values ( Read more... )

Disclaimer: The following was written while I was furious and frustrated. Please bear this in mind if anything offends you.

Until I came to my senses, I had actually fired up an editor to update my CV so I could find a job that wouldn't require me to fight with the festering pile of yuckiness that is Ruby. Consider the following irb session:

>> (1 ( Read more... )

I had an all-too-frequent argument this evening. This resulted (as it occasionally does) with the other person storming off in a huff, all offended. The conversations usually goes something like this ( Read more... )

Consider the following regular expression, designed to validate a tab-separated string and extract data from it:

>> t = "a\tx\tb"
=> "a\tx\tb"
>> re = Regexp.new("a\t\S\tb")
=> a S b
>> re.match(t)
=> nil
>> re = Regexp.new("a\t[^\t]\tb")
=> a [ ] b
>> re.match(t)
=> #This, at first, had me glaring at the docs for Ruby's ( Read more... )

A programmer I admire greatly twittered the following today:
Dear Ruby haters: I used to be afraid of the table saw until I learned how to use it safely. This did not involve nerfing the table saw.
I have great respect for this man, but we have a fundamental disagreement about a language he uses by choice and I use by necessity. I have a bunch of ( Read more... )

Some more hard-to-debug behaviour in Ruby, this time coming from a simple tyop. Consider the following function, noting the misspelling of elsif:

>> def testfoo(foo)
>> if foo.nil?
>> puts "foo is nil"
>> elseif foo.empty?
>> puts "foo is empty"
>> else
>> puts "foo is #{foo}"
>> end
>> end
=> nilNow, consider ( Read more... )

I came up with this on the spur of the moment and it seems that nobody else has used it within the reach of your favourite search engine.

User-coddlement (n):
An annoying modification made to a piece of software specifically to assist users who really should know better.

Examples:

• "Are you sure?" confirmations on non-destructive operations.
• ( Read more... )

Why is it that people seem to think that autogenerated "API references" count as documentation?

If I am looking at a new library, I want a tutorial and an overview of the major features. I'm happy to dive into code and API references once I know more or less what I need to look at but please, for the sake of all the little children and their ( Read more... )

When debugging server-side errors, it helps to be watching the logs on the server you're actually talking to.

I am currently filled with hate and loathing. I'm going to need a few moments to cool off before I carry on working.

I was trying to make an http call from an irb session full of state I had carefully collected. Most of the code I used is in a script, but I had been doing a substantial amount of exploration over data from a few different place. ( Read more... )