watched_repos.rb

require 'httparty'

class GitHub
  include HTTParty
  base_uri 'http://github.com/api/v2/yaml'
  
  API_METHODS = {
    :watched => '/repos/watched/' }

  class << self
    def show_watched
      @user = ARGV[0] || 'citizen428'
      get_watched_repos.shuffle.reject{ |r| r[:owner] == @user }.each do |r|
	puts "%30s: %-55s (%d)" % 
	  ["#{r[:owner]}/#{r[:name]}", shorten_desc(r[:description]), r[:watchers]]
      end
    end
    
    private
    def get_watched_repos
      self.get(API_METHODS[:watched]+@user)["repositories"]
    end
    
    def shorten_desc(str)
      str.length < 50 ? str : str[0..49]+'...'
    end
  end
end

GitHub.show_watched

str.length < 50 ? str : str[0..49]+'...'

I had a bug come out on this

Fixed it with

(str.nil? ? 0 : str.length) < 50 ? str : str[0..49]+'...'

How about this?

(str && str.length < 50) ? str : str[0..49]+'...'

I thought about that, but thought it might require a second look later to remember why.