From: Dave@...
Date: 2003-02-17T17:46:02+09:00
Subject: Ruby Weekly News


   Ruby Weekly News: 02/17/2003

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

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

   Ruby-freedb 0.5
          Guillaume Pierronnet has released Ruby/freedb 0.5. Get
          Ruby-freedb([1]).

   FreeType2-Ruby 0.1.0
          Paul Duncan has released an initial alpha release of his
          FreeType2 Ruby bindings work. Get FreeType2-Ruby([2]).

   MusicBrainz-Ruby 0.1.0
          Paul Duncan is on a rampage releasing another set of bindings
          to access MusicBrainz([3]). Get MusicBrains-Ruby 0.1.0([4]).

   FormValidator 0.1.0
          Travis Whitton has released a port of Perl's
          Data::FormValidator library. Get FormValidator([5]).

   Test::Unit 0.1.8
          Nathaniel Talbott has released a new version of Test::Unit.
          Test unit is a comprehensive unit testing framework that is
          destined to become part of the eagerly anticipated 1.8 Ruby
          distribution. View the changelog([6]). Get TestUnit([7]).

   Flash and Ruby GUI prototype
          Richard Lyman has released his work on writing a Flash GUI with
          Ruby. Very interesting work. Get Flash and Ruby GUI([8]).

   DBD-Google-Ruby
          Paul Duncan has released a DBD perspective to access Google.
          Interesting approach to URI's. Get DBD-Google-Ruby([9]).

   PLRuby 0.3.3
          PL/Ruby is a loadable procedural language for the Postgres
          database system that enable the Ruby language to create
          functions and trigger procedures. PLRuby([10]).

   Joystick-Ruby 0.1.0
          Paul Duncan has been busy releasing Linux joystick bindings for
          Ruby. Get Joystick-Ruby([11]).

   sys-cpu 0.2.0
          Daniel Berger has released a enw version of sys-cpu. sys-cpu is
          a package that provides various bits of information about the
          cpu(s) on your system, including load average information. Get
          sys-cpu([12]).

   net-pingsimple 0.2.0
          Daniel Berger has also released a new version of
          net-pingsimple. pingsimple is an interface to the ping command.

   REXML 2.5.4
          Sean Russel has released a new version of everyones favourite
          in Ruby XML parser. Get REXML([13]).

          Guillaume Pierronnet has released Ruby/freedb 0.5. Get
          Ruby-freedb([14]).

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

   Supporting windows through C extensions
          Extending Ruby through C code is very common for any Unix,
          Linux, Mac platform but seems to remain somewhat of a mystery
          for the Windows platform. Read this thread to see what is
          involved and what is planned for future Ruby versions.

   Lexical scope and closures
          Another discussion about the scope inside blocks. Interesting
          read to see what the latest views of the community is on the
          subject.

References

   1. http://davedd.free.fr/ruby-freedb/
   2. http://www.pablotron.org/software/ft2-ruby/
   3. http://www.musicbrainz.org/
   4. http://www.pablotron.org/software/mb-ruby/
   5. http://grub.ath.cx/formvalidator/doc/
   6. http://testunit.talbott.ws/ChangeLog
   7. http://testunit.talbott.ws/
   8. http://www.lithinos.com/gui.html
   9. http://www.pablotron.org/download/dbd-google-ruby-pre-20030215.tar.gz
  10. http://raa.ruby-lang.org/list.rhtml?name=pl-ruby
  11. http://www.pablotron.org/software/joystick-ruby/
  12. http://ruby-sysutils.sourceforge.net/
  13. http://www.germane-software.com/software/rexml
  14. http://davedd.free.fr/ruby-freedb/