From: corion@...
Date: 2001-11-26T17:21:47+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:26489] New Ruby user / HTML Parser / Module repository

Hello everybody !

I have just joined the list after two days of using Ruby. A bit about my 
background - I come via (Turbo) Pascal, x86 assembly language to Perl, Python 
and now Ruby, and must say that language-wise, Ruby is the nicest thing I've 
seen from the three languages (OK, the promised saviour Perl 6 could be the same 
or better, but Ruby delivers now what Perl 6 only promises).

But I haven't subscribed to praise the virtues of Ruby to the converted - I 
searched the web to find some modules I wanted to use, but didn't find a 
repository comparable to CPAN. Most painful to me was the lack of a HTML parser,
so I went out and rolled my own, as the only link I could find was out of date. 
My port is a straight port of Gisle Aas' HTML::Parser module, with the (really 
nice) addition to convert it into an iterator (which makes sense for my main 
subclass, the HTML::LinkParser, which yield()s the links).

I'll put the source up this evening (in 10 hours) for review, the URL will be 
posted to the list unless somebody tells me otherwise. I will be interested in a 
review of the coding style and in pointers/links on how to create good 
documentation in Ruby (as Ruby has POD, I'd like some style advice). I'll be 
browsing the existing modules and duplicate their style, but if there is some 
guide, I'll be happy to know about it. I haven't created any regression tests 
yet for the module, so there is definitively much to do with the module - but if 
there is an (accepted) HTML parser already within the Ruby community, I'll be 
happy to throw out my code and use the existing parser - porting it was 
already a good learning experience :-)

-max