Posts tagged: RUBY

In 2007, I took a whack at learning Haskell as my Language of the Year. It was an educational experience on more levels than I had expected. I didn’t get as far with the language as I might have hoped, but I did have the essential mind-opening experience of dealing with a purely functional, “lazy” language. My approach and style in my primary day-to-day language (Python) changed in a positive way. I really like Haskell and hope to continue playing, and possibly working, with it in the future.

I was able to stop by Holocene this evening for the first half of FOSCON III: Really Radical Ruby. Those crazy kids. The event was sponsored by SQKWZR, which the two founding scientists/emcees claimed was fake – but you know they’re just saying that to keep people from stealing their ideas.

I saw five 10-minute-ish lightning talks before I had to leave and get my beauty rest. Here’s the gist. My apologies in advance to anyone whose presentation details, name, or affiliation I bungle:

I wasn’t able to get to OSCON this year, but this photo is definitely a winner in the category of impromptu geek performance art:

Ruby on Rael

In November I wrote about rediscovering BASIC Computer Games, a book I had when I was learning programming in the ’80s. Flipping through it recently I came across a simple game called “Reverse”:

The game of REVERSE requires you to arrange a list of numbers in numerical order from left to right. To move, you tell the computer how many numbers (counting from the left) to reverse. For example, if the current list is 2 3 4 5 1 6 7 8 9 and you reverse 4, the result will be 5 4 3 2 1 6 7 8 9. Now if you reverse 5, you win.

$ grep ub$ /usr/share/dict/words
    | ruby -ne "print split(/(\s+)/).map{|w|w.capitalize}" 
    | xargs -I FOOB echo "FOOBuntu" 
    | column

Bathtubuntu     Interclubuntu   Strubuntu
Bedaubuntu      Knubuntu        Stubuntu
Bedubuntu       Misdaubuntu     Subuntu
Beelzebubuntu   Moneygrubuntu   Subshrubuntu
Blubuntu        Nubuntu         Succubuntu
Bubuntu         Ouroubuntu      Swilltubuntu
Cherubuntu      Overscrubuntu   Trillibubuntu
Chubuntu        Pubuntu         Trubuntu
Clubuntu        Redaubuntu      Tubuntu
Cubuntu         Redubuntu       Unclubuntu
Daubuntu        Rerubuntu       Undaubuntu
Disdubuntu      Rescrubuntu     Underclubuntu
Drubuntu        Resnubuntu      Undergrubuntu
Dubuntu         Reubuntu        Underscrubuntu
Flubuntu        Roubuntu        Undershrubuntu
Flubdubuntu     Rubuntu         Undertubuntu
Fubuntu         Sandclubuntu    Undubuntu
Gaubuntu        Scrubuntu       Washtubuntu
Glubuntu        Semishrubuntu   Woodgrubuntu
Grubuntu        Shrubuntu       Zebubuntu
Hubuntu         Sillabubuntu    Zermahbubuntu
Hubbubuntu      Slubuntu
Inrubuntu       Snubuntu

I got the idea for this after listening to a recent LugRadio podcast. They’re all about Ubuntu. If you didn’t know, Ubuntu is a Linux distribution that has begun sprouting similarly-named offshoots like Kubuntu and Edubuntu and whatnot.

The place to be during the afternoon break today was the Portland Ballroom, where the Artist Currently Known as why the lucky stiff and musical accomplices unleashed a multimedia explosion involving Ruby, cartoon foxes, animation, repeated MPlayer crashes, video artifacting, rocking out, shadow puppets, and network timeouts. I think this is the show he did at FOSCON last night. The quality of the stuff that did work was so high that the stuff that didn’t work wasn’t such a big deal. My favorite bits were the hilarious animated imaginary Ruby Cabal meetings. A good time was had by all and I don’t think that there will ever be another conference presentation where someone says, “You’ll notice we’re using octagonal paper… as seen on Battlestar Galactica.” Check why’s site to see if he comes through on his promise to post those media files.

The PDX Ruby Brigade (“PDX” is the airport code for Portland) is hosting a sort of alternative/extended OSCON called FOSCON. It’s being held at Freegeek.

Several of us in Portland got into OSCON free the last couple of years by volunteering. When we found out that there would be no volunteer opportunities this year we decided to see if any of the Ruby speakers would like to practice their OSCON talks on us local Rubyists - thus FOSCON (or as Lennon calls it: OSCANT) was born.