pwightman

def palindrome? str
  str.downcase!
  # gsub stands for "global substitution" and replaces all occurrences
  # of the matching regex with the given string. Here, we want all "non-word"
  # characters to be removed from the string
  str.gsub! /[\W]/, ""
  # If the forward and backward versions are the same, it's a palindrome
  str == str.reverse
end

pwightman

class WrongNumberOfPlayersError < StandardError ; end
class NoSuchStrategyError < StandardError ; end

def rps_game_winner(game)
  raise WrongNumberOfPlayersError unless game.length == 2

  player1 = game[0]
  player2 = game[1]

  player1_play = player1[1]

pwightman

def combine_anagrams words
  # Kendal's idea. Passing a block to the constructor is how you tell
  # the hash what to do when a key is accessed that doesn't yet exist.
  hash = Hash.new do |h, key|
    h[key] = []
  end

  words.each do |word|
    # As the key, we want to use the lowercase sorted
    # for of the word, as anagrams will always have the

pwightman

class Dessert
  attr_accessor :name, :calories

  def initialize(name, calories)
    @name = name
    @calories = calories
  end

  def healthy?
    @calories < 200

pwightman

# (a)
class Class
  def attr_accessor_with_history attr

    attr = attr.to_s

    attr_reader attr

    class_eval %Q{
      # Create a history method for the attribute

pwightman

class CartesianProduct
  include Enumerable

  def initialize a, b
    @a = a
    @b = b
  end

  # Every method has an implied block that is sent into it, it does NOT need to be
  # specified as a parameter.

pwightman

1.9.3p194 :006 > u.errors[:title] = "can't be blank"
 => "can't be blank" 
1.9.3p194 :007 > u.errors.full_messages
 => ["Title can't be blank"] 
1.9.3p194 :008 > u.errors[:base] = "Please don't do that"
 => "Please don't do that" 
1.9.3p194 :009 > u.errors.full_messages
 => ["Title can't be blank", "Please don't do that"] 

pwightman

Install Ubuntu on Windows

Mac OSX/Ubuntu users can skip this section. If you're running Windows, follow these instructions to install Ubuntu inside a virtual machine.

• Download and install VirtualBox from here
• Download this Ubuntu ISO file (Note that this is 64-bit, if you don't have a 64-bit machine then you'll want to do the 32-bit version
• Start up VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine for Ubuntu (just follow default options on each screen if you aren't sure what to do. I recommend doing a 40GB hard drive. It won't actually consume that much, it allocates space as it needs it.)
• Once the virtual machine is created, click on the VM you just created in the list of VMs and click the Settings button
• In the Storage section, add an IDE controller that points to the .iso file you just down

pwightman

// This was someone's real java code in production (names changed), 
// I'm not making this crap up.

class SomeClass {
  public void someMethod() {
    if (some_condition) {
      try {
        throw new Exception(); 
      } catch(Exception e) {
        System.out.println(e.message());

pwightman

IRC for URails

IRC is sort of like a free chat room. Anyone can host their own IRC server and people can connect to it, join "channels", etc. It's often used as a place users can find help with others that have their same common interest. For example, there's a server called "freenode" which is quite popular and has rooms for rails, ruby, python, and most anything you can think of.

Jeff Sandberg, a Rails Veteran who has decided to help out the group, helped set up an IRC server called snoonet that we'll be using for a URails channel that Jeff and I will usually be in when we're at our computers, where you can ask any Rails-related questions and where we can collaborate when we're working on URails stuff at the same time. This will be much easier than the mailing list or email.

IRC Client

Mac