From: rubyvic <rubyvic@...>
Date: 2006-02-12T15:07:56+09:00
Subject: Simultaneous text input/output in a command line game

Hi everyone!

I�m currently learning Ruby, and have made this simple number guessing game:
____________________________
puts "I'm thinking of a number from 0 to 10. What's your guess?"

my_number = rand(11)
user_guess = gets.chomp.to_i

until user_guess == my_number
if user_guess > my_number
puts "Too high."
else my_number > user_guess
puts "Too low."
end
puts "Guess again:"
user_guess = gets.chomp.to_i
end

puts "Yep, it was " + my_number.to_s + ". You win!"
____________________________

A friend of mine wrote a Java version which you can see here: 
http://violasong.com/tonyguessinggame.java. In addition to what my 
script does, his is able to taunt you with a random message if you don�t 
input any data for 5 seconds :).

I want to try adding that functionality to my script, and am wondering 
if it's possible in Ruby � to print a message every x seconds *while* 
it's waiting for you to input something. If someone could point me in 
the right direction, that would be much appreciated!

Victoria Wang