From: Matthew D Moss <matthew.moss@...>
Date: 2008-03-01T09:06:05+09:00
Subject: [QUIZ] Hello, world? (#158)

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Hello, world?


The first program any new programmer typically sees is one that  
prints out "Hello, world!" to the console. This tends to be something  
experienced programmers also see when learning a new language. The  
first Hello World program was written in B [1] by Kernighan and  
looked like this:

         main( ) {
             extrn a, b, c;
             putchar(a); putchar(b); putchar(c); putchar('!*n');
         }

         a 'hell';
         b 'o, w';
         c 'orld';

Most programmers are probably more familiar with the typical C  
implementation:

         main() {
             printf("Hello, world!\n");
         }

Ruby can present the same output very simply:

         puts "Hello, world!"

But that's too simple... I mean, really... *anyone* can print a  
simple string to standard output. Can't we get more interesting?  
Hmmm, how about:

         puts sprintf("%s, %s!", "Hello", "world")

Eh, that looks too much like C. Maybe...

         puts %w(Hello world).join(", ") + "!"

Yeah, that's definitely looking Ruby-ish.

Your task this week is to print "Hello, world!" to standard output  
using Ruby in atypical fashion. Some guildlines:

- DO submit multiple variants in your submission, but we don't need  
100 variants from everyone. Try to limit yourself to your best dozen.
- DO keep things reasonably simple. I would expect many solutions to  
be one- or two-liners, some solutions to involve classes and  
functions, and a variety in-between. But we're looking for Ruby-isms,  
not volume of code, so don't write pages upon pages of code just to  
print "Hello, world!"
- DON'T obfuscate unnecessarily. We're looking for interesting Ruby  
tricks, not utter confusion. A little obfuscation is okay, but a lot  
is to be avoided.
- DON'T send me my own examples from above. I already did them. Do  
other stuff. It *is* okay if your solution is similar to mine,  
provided you make some interesting modifications.


[1] http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/btut.html