Rubi - A Ruby IRC Bot

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'socket'

# http://railsforum.com/viewtopic.php?id=10057 for string extension below

class String
  def starts_with?(characters)
      self.match(/^#{characters}/) ? true : false
  end
end

class IRC
  
  def initialize() 
     @prepend = "*"
  end
  def connect(server,port,nick)
     @sock = TCPSocket.new(server,port)
     @sock.puts("NICK #{nick}")
     @sock.puts("USER #{nick} #{nick} #{server} :RubiBot")
     thread = Thread.new() {
       join("##XAMPP")
       while 1
          line = @sock.readline
          puts ">> #{line}"
          if line.starts_with?("PING :")
            line["PING :"] = "PONG :"
            sendraw(line)
          else
            splt = line.split(' ')
            code = splt[1]
            if code == "PRIVMSG"
              channel = splt[2]
              msg = line[line.rindex(':') +1..-1]
              if channel == "##XAMPP"
                 if msg.starts_with?(@prepend)
                    msg = msg[1..-1]
                    if msg.starts_with?("say")
                      msg = msg[4..-1]
                      sendmsg(channel,msg)
                    end
                 end
              end
            end
          end
       end
     }
  end
  def sendmsg(channel,msg)
     sendraw("PRIVMSG #{channel} :#{msg}")
  end
  def sendraw(msg)
     puts "<< #{msg}"
     @sock.puts(msg)
  end
  def join(channel)
     puts "Attempting to join #{channel}..."
     sendraw("JOIN #{channel}")
  end
end
if __FILE__ == $0
  @irc = IRC.new()
  @irc.connect("irc.freenode.net",6667,"RubiBot")
  while 1
     sleep(50)
  end
end