What was your first Ruby app?

**sweatje** · Oct 2, 2005, 17:40

Besides the usual poking around in irb or copying examples, what is the first application you wrote using Ruby?

My first was a generator for PHP test script code! Basically many of my Model classes resembly TableDataGateways, and the tests I run for each method look similar with minor tweaks for parameters, etc. I wrote a Ruby shell script which would list the files in my models directory, allow you to choose one, then ready in the classes in the choosen script and present a list of the methods. When you selected the method it would write the basic test case for that method.

I have since refactored (in part due the the recoginition that if I needed a program to write a bunch of repetative test cases, then I have other problems) to the point where it is no longer needed, but that was my first baby steps.

What were yours?

**Commander Cobra** · Oct 2, 2005, 17:50

My first and pretty much only app with Ruby was playing around with Ruby on Rails. Once I couldn't figure out a way to map ROR to joined tables/views, I dropped it. PHP does everything I need - don't see any reason to use Ruby.

**samsm** · Oct 2, 2005, 18:07

cookbook was my first.

**vgarcia** · Oct 3, 2005, 05:53

Originally Posted by samsm

cookbook was my first.

Same here.

The first one I tried writing by myself was a finance manager. Basically something to input bills, checks, etc. I got most of the logic stuff done in an afternoon and spent the rest of the weekend refactoring. It's not the most robust system in the world but I never intended for anyone other than me to use it

**Sgarissta** · Oct 3, 2005, 07:49

My first were a group of shell scripts doing all sorts of little things. One script to keep my dyndns hostname updated correctly. Another that parsed the text of a schema dump generated by ASP and turned it into a semi-valid SQL file. Another to automate the process of migrating a bunch of existing CVS projects to SVN. I did all of these in an afternoon, and they're still running perfectly today. Probably not more than 200 lines of code across all of them.

While I've played with Rails a bit, I find that Ruby as a general scripting language is just excellent. I create more readable, easier to use scripts with it and for rarely run, quick parse scripts it's speed issues aren't even relevant.

**Luke Redpath** · Oct 3, 2005, 09:11

Originally Posted by Commander Cobra

My first and pretty much only app with Ruby was playing around with Ruby on Rails. Once I couldn't figure out a way to map ROR to joined tables/views, I dropped it. PHP does everything I need - don't see any reason to use Ruby.

I'm continously baffled by people who give up on something so easy so quickly.

**Commander Cobra** · Oct 3, 2005, 12:53

Originally Posted by Luke Redpath

I'm continously baffled by people who give up on something so easy so quickly.

LOL. Sounds like you're easily baffled.

**vgarcia** · Oct 3, 2005, 12:56

Originally Posted by Commander Cobra

My first and pretty much only app with Ruby was playing around with Ruby on Rails. Once I couldn't figure out a way to map ROR to joined tables/views, I dropped it.

Try reading the cookbook article that samsm posted earlier. It shows how to work with joins and it's relatively easy

**lastcraft** · Oct 3, 2005, 12:56

Hi.

An adult content filter, unix pipe style. The bigger issue of the back end crunching to generate the look-up tables is my third app. It was this task that resulted in the performance thread I posted earlier.

My second was a Tk Suduko solver.

yours, Marcus

**Commander Cobra** · Oct 3, 2005, 12:59

Originally Posted by vgarcia

Try reading the cookbook article that samsm posted earlier. It shows how to work with joins and it's relatively easy

Ah, maybe. I still don't really see any compelling reason to use Ruby. It seems a lot like Python and I hate hate hate Python. PHP irritates me a little, but it does most of what I need, and creating web sites with it is pretty trivial.

**vgarcia** · Oct 3, 2005, 13:01

Originally Posted by Commander Cobra

Ah, maybe. I still don't really see any compelling reason to use Ruby. It seems a lot like Python and I hate hate hate Python. PHP irritates me a little, but it does most of what I need, and creating web sites with it is pretty trivial.

That's cool and your choice. It's always nice to know all your available options though

**Commander Cobra** · Oct 3, 2005, 13:04

Originally Posted by vgarcia

That's cool and your choice. It's always nice to know all your available options though

Aren't you going to give a sales pitch?!?!

I used to try every technology du jour, but found it's like treading water really really fast. Largely unproductive and unsatisfying.

**vgarcia** · Oct 3, 2005, 13:09

Originally Posted by Commander Cobra

Aren't you going to give a sales pitch?!?!

Nah, I gave up on selling languages a long time ago. I know what works for me and I don't expect it to work for everyone. I'm okay with that

**Commander Cobra** · Oct 3, 2005, 13:15

Originally Posted by vgarcia

Nah, I gave up on selling languages a long time ago. I know what works for me and I don't expect it to work for everyone. I'm okay with that

Looks like you have a homework assignment for your blog ;P - PHP vs. Ruby and Why I Choose Ruby.

**mark_W** · Oct 3, 2005, 13:17

I havnt used ruby yet but Im hoping to code my first app soon and with some of the resources in this forum I am sure it wont be that tricky but what first app should I code, Hmmmm!

**vgarcia** · Oct 3, 2005, 13:22

Originally Posted by mark_W

I havnt used ruby yet but Im hoping to code my first app soon and with some of the resources in this forum I am sure it wont be that tricky but what first app should I code, Hmmmm!

Please please please not a todo list. Code up a blog or guestbook or something, anything but a todo list!

**mark_W** · Oct 3, 2005, 13:25

Originally Posted by vgarcia

Please please please not a todo list. Code up a blog or guestbook or something, anything but a todo list!

What about a tasks list......! LOL!

**Luke Redpath** · Oct 3, 2005, 14:30

A blog is a pretty good "Hello World" type app for Rails. Don't try and reinvent the wheel though. Do it as an exercise, then move on

**samsm** · Oct 3, 2005, 15:29

Originally Posted by vgarcia

Please please please not a todo list. Code up a blog or guestbook or something, anything but a todo list!

Ha! Yeah. Particularly skip the Make a Todo list with Rails .9 as the current version of Rails, .13 is, as you may have guessed, way past there.

**sweatje** · Oct 3, 2005, 16:33

Originally Posted by lastcraft

Hi.

An adult content filter, unix pipe style. The bigger issue of the back end crunching to generate the look-up tables is my third app. It was this task that resulted in the performance thread I posted earlier.

Have you tried out any of the ruby2c converters?

Originally Posted by lastcraft

My second was a Tk Suduko solver.

I wish I had a little more time for the ruby quizes. They look like a very nice way to learn ruby.

**pfharlock** · Oct 7, 2005, 10:30

my first ruby program was a console script that would solve monoalphabetic simple substitution ciphers, (ie cryptoquotes in the newspaper). It counted tetragraphs (occurances of 4 letter combinations) in something like a novel, stored them in a hash, then would use the gathered statistics to score a ciphertext and make small changes in an attempt to improve the score. Fun first program to write, little slow. I rewrote the algorithm later on in java and there was a signifigant speed increase, but the code was moderately less obvious.

my second app was to teach myself how to write TK apps in ruby. It's a little GUI app that lets you search and replace using regular expressions. It has been very convenient for letting me see what is actually being matched by a regex while I'm crafting it. It also run's a little slow on large text files, but this has more to do with the way I'm pulling the data from the TKText object and setting up the TKTags to do the marking.

I've really enjoyed the language so far, and plan to keep using it for a variety of different tasks.

**joepetrini** · Oct 25, 2005, 06:55

My first app is about halfway done. It's a rails controller & model to provide user signup, login, and profile editing. It has email verification and password recovery built in as well. Using it as a good app to get a good understanding of everything and at the end have something that might be valuable to others.

**jpease** · Oct 25, 2005, 10:41

My first ruby program was a shell script that automatically queries and harvests contact info from Google for all possible phone numbers within a given area code and prefix and sorts it out into a CVS file.