From: Dave@...
Date: 2003-01-13T18:33:15+09:00
Subject: Ruby Weekly News


   Ruby Weekly News: 01/13/2003

   A summary of activity on the ruby-talk mailing list, brought to you
   this week by Holden Glova.

   ANNOUNCEMENTS
   =============

   FormatR 1.07
          FormatR provides Perl-like Formats for Ruby. It reads and
          writes formatted text. Get FormatR([1]).

   YAML.rb 0.49.0
          "why the lucky stiff" has released a new version of YAML.rb.
          YAML.rb is a data serialization language that is simple to
          learn and very readable. This is release is considered to be a
          pre-release of 0.50. Get YAML.rb([2]).

   YAML.rb 0.49.1
          "why the lucky stiff" has released yet another version of
          YAML.rb. I've mentioned both releases because the text that
          _why wrote in the announcement may be of interest to you. Get
          YAML.rb([3]).

   Ruby 1.6.8 Windows Installer
          Andrew Hunt has packaged a new release of the Ruby 1.6.8
          Windows Installer. This release incorporates more
          documentation, contributed fixes and a more modern interface.
          Get Ruby 1.6.8 Windows Installer([4]).

   GridFlow 0.6.5
          Mathieu Bouchard has made a new release of GridFlow. GridFlow
          is a multi-dimensional data flow processing library for Ruby,
          jMax and PureData, specialized in pictures and video. Get
          GridFlow([5]).

   xml-configfile 0.6.0
          Maik Schmidt has released a class XmlConfigFile that makes
          handling XML configuration files easy. Get xml-configfile([6]).

   Win32Serial 0.1
          Travis Whitton has released a Ruby library that wraps up a
          small C library to manipulate the serial port using the Win32
          API. Get Win32Serial([7]).

   Things Newcomers to Ruby Should Know
          Both Ruby veterans and newcomers alike should check out a great
          document on some possible Ruby "gotchas" written by William
          Djaja Tjokrominata.

   INTERESTING THREADS
   ===================

   RubyConf 2002 slides have arrived
          Ryan Davis has collected many of the 2002 RubyConf
          presentations and made them available on the web. Check out
          what was presented, fantastic stuff! Presentations are
          available here([8]).

   Portland Perl Mongers find new gems
          Pat Eyler let us know that Phil Tomson gave a Ruby talk at the
          Portland USA Perl Mongers meeting which seems to have inspired
          some interest([9]).

   'borrow' TCL's virtual file system
          Phil Tomson put forward the idea of borrowing TCL's concept of
          a virtual file system. The idea is a common API to things like
          FTP, HTTP, Metakit, WebDAV, etc...Great idea IMHO.

References

   1. http://format.sourceforge.net/
   2. http://yaml4r.sf.net/
   3. http://yaml4r.sf.net/
   4. http://rubyinstaller.sourceforge.net/
   5. http://artengine.ca/jmax/gridflow/
   6. http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/list.rhtml?name=xml-configfile
   7. http://grub.ath.cx/win32serial
   8. http://www.zenspider.com/Languages/Ruby/RubyConf2002/
   9. http://use.perl.org/~Ovid/journal/9867