From: will <will.graduate@...>
Date: 2006-12-27T22:49:57+09:00
Subject: Re: newbie with a weird technical problem (@ least I think it's weird)

Thank you!  Your explanation helps me understand the subsequent
failures. Any idea why it 'almost' worked the first time?  (it printed
the @pages and @author info, and then it told me there was an error.)


On Dec 27, 6:44 am, Timothy Hunter <TimHun...@nc.rr.com> wrote:
> will wrote:
> > Yep, as the post title implies, I'm a newbie.  Being a pragmatic newbie
> > I'd rather be learning to program, than searching for answers to
> > non-language acquisition questions/problems.  I'm pretty sure the
> > following falls in that latter group, so if it's in a manual somewhere
> > please tell me so _politely_ and point me to _the_ manual. :-)
>
> > I'm starting to go through Dave Thomas' Programming Ruby/Picaxe (I'm on
> > pgs 25-26 2nd edition if you care) and I'm using TextMate/Terminal to
> > code and run modified versions of the book's examples.  So I ran a
> > version of the following with a typographical error, which was apparent
> > with the Terminal feedback.  So far, so good.  I fixed the error and
> > tried to run it again.  The problem is that now when I run it, all I
> > get in response is a new blank prompt.  I've tried renaming the file,
> > the class, giving it a completely new set of variables in the array and
> > quiting/restarting the Terminal.  If I type the _exact_ same thing into
> > irb I'm able to create a book and book2 instance and .inspect each of
> > them.  But with the TextMate/Terminal combo = Nothing, nadda, zip!
> > HELP, PLEASE!
>
> > #filename bib.rb
>
> > class Book
> >   def initialize(title, author, pages)
> >     @title   = title
> >     @author  = author
> >     @pages   = pages
> >   end
> > end
>
> > book = Book.new("Ruby Tutorial", "Dave", 831)
> > book.inspect
>
> > #terminal results
> > computer: me$ ruby bib.rb
> > computer: me$It's a language question. The inspect method returns a string. That
> string is not automatically displayed on the terminal. You have to print
> the string if you want to see it. Use "puts book.inspect" for example.
> 
> The reason you see the result in irb is that irb prints it for you.