From: Kyle Schmitt <kyleaschmitt@...>
Date: 2007-04-20T07:06:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Quick question

Hum.  Got me thinking, it's been awhile since I've used Net::HTTP, I
may have misspoken

So watir to html file
#only problem is it leaves an ie window hanging around, but it IS tiny :)
require 'watir'
File.open("/yea.html","w"){|f|
f.write(Watir::IE.start("http://news.google.com").html)}

Net::HTTP to html file
#just as small, easy and clean!
require 'net/http'
File.open("/yea.html","w"){|f|
f.write(Net::HTTP.get("news.google.com","/index.html"))}


Now the complexity comes when you want to navigate from page to page.
With Watir you do things like
@ie=Watir::IE.start(blah)
@ie.link(:text,/tofu/).click
Easy!  And there is also firewatir which is a workalike for firefox
(haven't tried it myself)

NetHTTP is a bit more involved, but quite doable, and you don't need
windows or a gui or anything.  Sadly I can't find the code I wrote
using it awhile ago.
Still lookie here, it's useful.
http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/net/http/rdoc/classes/Net/HTTP.html