From: Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@...>
Date: 2008-03-03T11:28:09+09:00
Subject: Re: [QUIZ] Hello, world? (#158) [SOLUTION]

To me, the essence of a "hello, world" program is to get the phase on  
the computer screen. But "on the screen" doesn't have to mean "write  
to stdout". My three solutions all avoid stdout.

The first solution highjacks Apple's TextEdit application.

<code>
require "appscript"
include Appscript
te = app('TextEdit')
te.launch
te.documents.end.make(:new => :document,
                       :with_properties => {:text => "hello, world\n"})
</code>

The second solution uses an AppleScript dialog.

<code>
require "osax"
include OSAX
osax.display_dialog("hello, world")
</code>

These first two solutions are Apple-centric. I don't apologize for  
that. I also employed the classic Kernighan and Ritchie version, just  
"hello, world", no caps or exclamation point.

The third solution uses Tk and should run on any system with a  
functioning Ruby/Tk library, but you may have to specify another  
font. This one is not so minimalist as the first two. Here I use what  
today seems to be the most common version of the phrase ("Hello,  
World!") just because it looks prettier in 72-point Brush Script.

<code>
require 'tk'

root = Tk.root
root.title('Ruby/Tk Hello')
win_w, win_h = 360, 160
win_x = (root.winfo_screenwidth - win_w) / 2
root.geometry("#{win_w}x#{win_h}+#{win_x}+50")
root.resizable(false, false)

TkLabel.new(root) {
    text 'Hello, World!'
    relief 'solid'
    borderwidth 1
    font('family'=>'Brush Script MT', 'size'=>72)
    place("x"=>10, "y"=>10, "height"=>92, "width"=>340)
}

TkButton.new(root) {
    text 'Goodbye'
    command { Tk.root.destroy }
    place("x"=>138, "y"=>122, "height"=>28, "width"=>83)
}

Tk.mainloop
</code>

The use of 'place', rather than 'pack' may seem strange. I confess I  
wrote the Ruby/Tk version quite some time ago when I was  
experimenting with the 'place' layout manager.

Regards, Morton