[ruby-talk:20033] Ruby Article

Hello,

I am the author of the Programming in ruby on IBM Developworks. I have been
reviewing all the feedback I received on the first article. Most of the
feedback was positive but I did receive some negative feedback about
my use of Global variables, and the over simplified approach I used
for some of the examples.

I am getting ready to release the second article, but I want to get
some feedback from the ruby community first. I would like the second
article to be more ruby centric and will need some help.

I have a lot of experience in Perl and moderate experience with
Python. ruby I have only been using part time and we are increasing
our usage but I am having a hard time figuring out what is "good"
about ruby (excluding the pure OO).

Anyway, without getting too wordy, I have included two example 
scripts that I was going to include in the second article. I 
would sincerely appreciate it if some of the more experienced 
ruby programmers would provide some feedback on it. No, the 
scripts are not terribly advanced. The first script opens a file
in append mode and asks for some input. The second allows you
to search through the file you created.

I really want to present ruby in a good light with the next article.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincereley,

Joshau Drake

== Begin Script
#!/usr/bin/ruby
begin
 myfile = open('phonespec.txt', 'a')
 $closing = "\n\nTo start the program again please type intro2.rb\n\tGood 
Bye!\n\n"

    enterFirstName = ""    #First Name in the addressbook
    enterLastName = ""    #Last Name in the Addressbook
    enterPhoneNumber = "" #Phone Number in the addressbook

  print "Welcome to MyAddressbook. Please follow the prompts.\n"
  print "If you wish to end data entry, you may do so at any time\n"
  print "by type the word END into a prompt.\n\n"
 while 1
   print "\n\tFirst Name: "
   enterFirstName = STDIN.gets
   enterFirstName.chop!
   if enterFirstName == "END"
     print $closing
     break
   end
   if enterFirstName != "END"
     print "\n\tLast Name: "
     enterLastName = STDIN.gets
     enterLastName.chop!
  end
  if enterLastName == "END"
    print $closing
    break
  end
  if enterLastName != "END"
    print "\n\tPhone Number: "
    enterPhoneNumber = STDIN.gets
    enterPhoneNumber.chop!
  end
  if enterPhoneNumber == "END"
    print $closing
    break
  end
  myfile.write(enterFirstName+"\t"+enterLastName+"\t"+enterPhoneNumber+"\n")
 end
   ensure
     myfile.close
end
== end script 1

== begin script 2
phoneData = IO.readlines("phonespec.txt");      # Read in file into array, 
default separator of '\n'

print "\n\nYou are searching for:\t"
searchData = STDIN.gets
searchData.chop!
myreg = Regexp.new(searchData, "i")     # The "i" option makes it 
case-insensitive.
numres = 0                              # Init number of results at 0.

for data in phoneData                   # For each line of data in our array...
  if myreg =~ data                      # Compare our regex against this line.
    print "Found result: " + data       # Output line that matched the regex.
    numres += 1                         # Increment number of results found.
  else
  end
end

print "\n\n(Found " + String(numres) + " results, while searching for '" + 
searchData + "' in 'phonespec.txt')\n\n"
== end script 2