Recently in Ruby Category

Jim Deville of Microsoft IronRuby team has started blogging. If you are interested in IronRuby, definitely subscribe.

I've updated Interactive IronRuby Web Shell aka Try IronRuby to IronRuby r113 engine. This is so manual, I need to implement automatic update.

I also added a bit controversial recording feature. I now record everything users type there for security and research purposes.  Security - because "Try IronRuby" is hosted on a shared ASP.NET hosting and if somebody crashes it I need to know how it was done to prevent it in the future.

Recording results are live and open at http://ironruby.info/ir/CodeViewer.aspx.

Funny thing - when I started recording I added a disclaimer below the console:

Your Ruby code might be recorded for research purposes. No personal data (such as IP address) is ever collected. View what others typed here.

Immediately a concerned user with name "Life Liberty Property" posted this comment:

While the Try IronRuby piece was cool/fast, the fine print underneath concerns me.

It shows signs that Microsoft doesn't get it, their shills don't get it, M$ and cronies refuse to change, they think they own everything, and they are no more open than before:
"Your Ruby code might be recorded for research purposes"

Do I have to study in detail the MSPL, too, to make sure they don't own everything I write?

Man, my trust surely wasn't earned today.

You mean that somebody is already trying to take code that isn't theirs? Get a life.

What's interesting is that http://tryruby.hobix.com/ doesn't pull this stunt. Of course, _why doesn't need my code.

I'd better respond.

First - sorry for unclear wording. Microsoft obviously doesn't own your Ruby code and IronRuby obviously doesn't record your Ruby Code.

Here is a revised disclaimer you can see below the console:

Everything you type here might be recorded for open research purposes. No personal data (such as IP address) is ever collected. View what others typed here.

I hope it's clearer.

And second - http://tryruby.hobix.com/ does pull this stunt too. And _why does need your code too. Because it's fun!

IronRuby is coming! Expected to be released this year Microsoft's IronRuby is quite a unique project. Fully open sourced, OSI-approved/GPL-inspired  license, hosted at Rubyforge, accepting external contributions. Yes, Microsoft's IronRuby. Cool.

Anyway, I decided why don't I build IronRuby version of the famous "Try Ruby in your browser" by _why? So anybody with 15 free minutes at hands could play with IronRuby. That sounds like cool way to learn IronRuby internals.

IronRuby includes ir.exe - nice interactive IronRuby shell. Thanks to open sources I managed to hack up simple AJAXish Web version in just one night. ASP.NET 3.5 application hosting IronRuby runtime + simple Web console emulating ir.exe.

It's hosted at http://www.ironruby.info/ir, currently at version "0.first.hack". Go play with it, but please don't crash it often. Here is a screenshot for those lazy ones:

Hosting a programming language shell on Web poses additional interesting problems. Ruby is a powerful language and IronRuby additionally provides access to the whole .NET framework. Letting anybody writing and executing any programs on my shared hosting??? Well, I managed to make it running under Minimal Trust level, which means execute permissions only. No file system, no network or Web access, nothing. That should be safe enough, but please don't hack me. Learn IronRuby instead!

Go Try IronRuby in your browser.

Any comments are welcome!

This book looks like one of the best Ruby on Rails book I've seen so far. It's probably more an introductionary one, but seems pretty solid. Hey Amazon marks it as [ILLUSTRATED] book :)

Anyway if Sitepoint lets you download it for free, why not. And if you prefer dead-tree copy, get $10 discount. The giveaway expires in 54 days.

Btw, don't you think Patrick Lenz should change his photo on this page? Come on Patrick, Ruby is all about fun.

[Via .Avery Blog]

 John Lam announced the very first pre-alpha drop of IronRuby - Microsoft open source (!) implementation of the Ruby language, licensed under Microsoft Permissive License. This release contains early bits of Ruby implementation for .NET based on the DLR(Dynamic Language Runtime), you actually have to build it if you want to run it. Scott Guthrie shows command line and WPF hello-world sample apps built with IronRuby.

IronRuby team takes unique (for Microsoft) approach - not only IronRuby implementation is going to be open source (IronPython is open source already), they actually plan to host it on RubyForge and accept source code contributions:

IronRuby Project Plans

Next month we will be moving the IronRuby source code repository to be hosted on RubyForge.  As part of this move we are also opening up the project to enable non-Microsoft developers to enlist in the project and contribute source code. We'll then work to implement the remaining features and fix compatibility issues found as more libraries and source are ported to run on top of it. 

The end result will be a compatible, fast, and flexible Ruby implementation on top of .NET that anyone can use for free.

Unbelievable. Either Microsoft don't see any money behind IronRuby or this is some kind of evil experiment.

I love Ruby and .NET. Sure I will be contributing.

Btw, don't be confused with IronRuby and Ruby.NET projects. IronRuby is new Microsoft Ruby implementation, while Ruby.NET is soon-to-be-open-source Ruby implementation started by Queensland University in Australia. While IronRuby uses parts of Ruby.NET compiler, John Lam sees IronRuby as continuation of the Ruby.NET. Both projects seem to be similar and so I believe Ruby.NET story is probably over.

I'm playing with IronRuby right now. This is cool stuff, now I want it to be fast, I want full Visual Studio support and I want it to be my primary language. Screw Java and C#, Ruby is where all fun is.

And finally another great news about Visual Studio 2008 from Scott Guthrie:

You'll see Beta2 ship later this week - so only a few more days now.

I was looking for Ruby on Rails hosting and found this amazing offer from DreamHost. This is just unbelievable. Consider this:

1. Disk Storage at signup - 178.5 GB, automatically increases weekly by 1 GB
2. Monthly Bandwidth at signup - 1.785 TB, automatically increases weekly by 16 GB
3. MySQL Databases: unlimited
4. E-Mail Accounts (POP/IMAP) - 3,000
5. 1 free domain name
6. Domains Hosted -  unlimited
7. Full Unix Shell
8. Ruby On Rails
9. CVS Repository
10. Subversion Repository (SVN)
11. SSH access
12. WebDAV, Frontpage, Streaming
13. 97-day money-back guarantee
14. Host reliably with 18th-ranked web host in the world (442,285 domains hosted).
15. More and more and more... 

These guys are like gmail in web hosting - they talk hundreds gigabytes of space and terabytes of bandwidth.

And for this "oh my freaking God" hosting plan they want $9.95/mo only (or even $7.95 if you subscribe for 2 years). But wait, google for "Dreamhost" and you can find promo codes like "mddr" or "FLY", which give you $97 discount for the first year.

Bottom line - you have to pay only $22.40 for the whole first year.

Cool. I want this. Fuck Windows hosting, go Linux and Ruby :)

Where is the catch, anybody?

Update. Ok, here comes the tricky part. "DreamHost Web Hosting does not accept payments from Israel". Really weird. What's wrong with payments from Israel? Oh well, happily I have US card too.

If you were thinking about learning Ruby - this is what you need to get started smoothly. Just released One-Click Ruby Installer 1.8.5-22 Final for Windows is "A self-contained installer that includes the Ruby language, dozens of popular extensions, a syntax-highlighting editor and the book "Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide".

You would also need FreeRIDE - free full-blown Ruby IDE, written of course in Ruby.

So you get full Ruby runtime, decent IDE and a book - what else do you need? Go for it.

If you like the "Daily Grind" by Mike Gunderloy you might like its Microsoft-free version "Quick Links" at the "A fresh Cup" site ("Notes from a recovering Microsoft addict") too. Worth subscribing anyway.

Man is driven to create; I know I really love to create things. And while I’m not good at painting, drawing, or music, I can write software.

I believe that the purpose of life is, at least in part, to be happy. Based on this belief, Ruby is designed to make programming not only easy, but also fun. It allows you to concentrate on the creative side of programming, with less stress.

Yukihiro Matsumoto, inventor of Ruby

I just started learning Ruby and I already feel it might be the language I love (well, after XSLT of course).