[ruby-talk:15549] ColdFusion for Ruby

I don't currently use Ruby. To tell the truth, I have no real reason to. I'd
like that to change.
Currently I'm doing web apps using ColdFusion and have been for almost 6
years now. One of the powers of CF as a web app language is the ease of
learning and speed of writing. This is all due to it having a tag based
language syntax. Ruby has much of the same with eruby. I'm on this list to
talk to people who write the code for eruby and hopefully work with them to
get some of the features of CF into eruby.
The main feature is the tag block. This is a section of code that takes
attributes in it's 'head' section and other data in it's 'body'. For
example, a query to a DB would be:
<CFQUERY name="qQueryReturn" datasource="Some Datasource">
 Select lastname, firstname, age
  From table
  where firstname = 'Michael'
</CFQUERY>
What this is saying is query a database who's information is defined in the
administrator using the 'common name' "some datasource. The query uses the
direct SQL syntax inside the body and the results of the query will be
loaded into a complex data set that can be accessed using the variable
qQueryReturn.

Another example is:
<CFOUTPUT>Today is #now()#. Actually, the formatted date would be
#dateformat(now())#</CFOUTPUT>
This is an 'output zone' where anything within it that is surrounded with
pound signs (#) will be evaluated as a CF variable or function. In this case
we have no variables but we do have the now() function which returns the
current date/time and the dateformat() function which returns a formatted
date (using the return of now() as the seed date).

A third example using the query above is:
<CFOUTPUT query="qQueryReturn">This is row number #currentrow# of the query.
The last name is #lastname# and the age is #age#</CFOUTPUT>
In this example, we will loop over each row returned from the query and
output the information about the current row. The currentrow variable is
generated by the looping mechanism to show where we are.

These are some of the basic changes or additions that need to be made to
eruby to allow CF programmers to get right into using the language for web
apps. Other things like
<CFSET variable = "value"> are already basically supported. It's the block
tags and the output that needs some work. Of course, I don't expect to get
exactly what CF has nor to copy it directly but I think it's something that
might be useful in Ruby and would definitely get it a lot of new people.
Thanks.

Michael Dinowitz
Publisher: Fusion Authority weekly news alert
(www.fusionauthority.com/alert)
Listmaster: CF-Talk, CF-Jobs, Spectra-Talk, Jrun-Talk, etc.
(www.houseoffusion.com)