The three rules of Ruby Q.:
-
Please do not post any solutions or spoiler discussion for this quiz
until
48 hours have passed from the time on this message.
-
Support Ruby Q. by submitting ideas as often as you can:
http://www.rubyquiz.com/
- Enjoy!
Suggestion: A [QUIZ] in the subject of emails about the problem helps
everyone
on Ruby T. follow the discussion. Please reply to the original quiz
message,
if you can.
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As most of you have probably heard, the Lone Star Rubyconf is on the
horizon:
http://lonestarrubyconf.com/
What you haven’t heard before now is that the conference organizers need
our
help. As is typical for these events, several gifts will be given away
to the
attendees. Names for the prize recipients need to be selected at
random.
That’s where this quiz comes in.
The LSRC organizers would like us to build name picking applications
they can
choose from. The functionality is very basic:
-
Your application needs to accept input as a list of attendees.
At a minimum, you should accept names, but it might be nice to
allow for additional details like the attendee’s organization.
-
Each time your application is run, it should select and display
a single name from the list. Your application should remember
previously selected names and not choose them a second time.
The real quiz is how fancy you can make that process. The LSRC
organizers are
looking for a lot of sex appeal in their name picker. Solutions that
incorporate the conference name or stars will be given extra
consideration. The
goal is something that will have a room full of attendees entranced when
run on
the projector. Any interface that meets the above criteria will do.
The conference organizers will recognize the author(s) of any selected
solution(s) at the event (your output can also include a byline), which
will
surely lead to unending fame. Fortune may have to follow at a later
date.
Sorry the quiz was late this week.
James Edward G. II
On Jun 24, 2007, at 12:51 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
\Questions:
- Does it have to run on a Macintosh? I don’t have one to test on!
I don’t see any mention of a Macintosh in the quiz description. What
moves you to ask this?
- Does it have to run on a command line? It’s really hard to
entrancea room full of people without some eye candy?
You could do some neat stuff with the Curses library – good change
to show off your ASCII art abilities.
I’m not sure I’m going to do this quiz, but if I do, I’ll use Ruby/
Tk. Should run on any platform and the potential for eye candy would
only be limited by my imagination and time available for implementation.
Regards, Morton
Morton G. wrote:
On Jun 24, 2007, at 12:51 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
\Questions:
- Does it have to run on a Macintosh? I don’t have one to test on!
I don’t see any mention of a Macintosh in the quiz description. What
moves you to ask this?
What moves me to ask this is that every Ruby conference I’ve been to so
far (all both of them plus FOSCON II) had a room full of Macs and an
occasional Windows or Linux box. I’ve got nothing against Macs –
they’re fine machines – but I don’t have one.
- Does it have to run on a command line? It’s really hard to
entrancea room full of people without some eye candy?
You could do some neat stuff with the Curses library – good change to
show off your ASCII art abilities.
What art abilities? 
Yeah, I could do some neat stuff with the Curses
library, but it would end up looking like the Matrix screen saver.
I have seen some rather impressive ASCII art animation/demos, though.
I’m not sure I’m going to do this quiz, but if I do, I’ll use Ruby/Tk.
Should run on any platform and the potential for eye candy would only be
limited by my imagination and time available for implementation.
Regards, Morton
Yeah, I think Ruby/Tk runs on a Mac … but I have something a little
more diabolical in mind.
On 6/24/07, James Edward G. II [email protected] wrote:
Sorry the quiz was late this week.
James Edward G. II
And sorry for violating the Spoiler Period, here comes my solution:
puts “Robert D.”
Cheers
Robert
James,
The Lone Star Ruby Conf looks interesting, particularly yours and
Evan S.s’ sessions. Will these be available in some form after the
conference? I’d love to be there, but I’m half a world away.
Cheers,
Dave
On Jun 24, 2007, at 2:48 AM, Robert D. wrote:
Cheers
Robert
My suggestion to everyone: the Takahashi Method…
On Jun 23, 2007, at 11:28 PM, Ruby Q. wrote:
- Enjoy!
As most of you have probably heard, the Lone Star Rubyconf is on
That’s where this quiz comes in.
The LSRC organizers would like us to build name picking
applications they can
choose from. The functionality is very basic:
- Your application needs to accept input as a list of attendees.
At a minimum, you should accept names, but it might be nice to
allow for additional details like the attendee’s organization.
How is the list stored/ input? CSV? Or is it undetermined
On 6/24/07, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky [email protected] wrote:
Yeah, I think Ruby/Tk runs on a Mac … but I have something a little
more diabolical in mind. 
Here’s diabolical for you. Well, maybe not diabolical, but sinister
nonetheless. You do a flashy/buzzer thing like some of your current
restaurants (you know, that tell you you’ve been selected for a
table), but you make it a cheap wristband that each attendee gets upon
arrival. It gives you a zap when your name has been selected. Ruby
is behind the scenes of course
On Jun 24, 2007, at 9:53 AM, John J. wrote:
- Your application needs to accept input as a list of attendees.
At a minimum, you should accept names, but it might be nice to
allow for additional details like the attendee’s organization.
How is the list stored/ input? CSV? Or is it undetermined
You can determine a suitable input format. Just make it easy to
produce and document what you need, please.
James Edward G. II
On Jun 23, 2007, at 11:51 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
Questions:
- Does it have to run on a Macintosh? I don’t have one to test on!
I would think it’s always an advantage to have your program run on as
many platforms as possible.
- Does it have to run on a command line? It’s really hard to
entrance
a room full of people without some eye candy?
Not at all. As the quiz mentions, any interface will do.
James Edward G. II
On Jun 24, 2007, at 12:08 AM, Sharon P. wrote:
The Lone Star Ruby Conf looks interesting, particularly yours and
Evan S.s’ sessions.
Thanks. That’s very kind of you to say.
Will these be available in some form after the conference? I’d love
to be there, but I’m half a world away.
My hope is the the conference organizers will try to publish all of
the talks. I think this is a good habit.
I will put my slides online at the very least though.
James Edward G. II
On Jun 23, 2007, at 11:29 PM, James Edward G. II wrote:
Sorry the quiz was late this week.
Those of you following along closely have probably noticed that Ruby
Quiz launches have been pretty problematic these last couple of
weeks. The reason is that a bug in Ruby 1.8.6-p36 had crippled the
Ruby Q. software and launches were pretty much happening by hand.
That wasn’t working out well.
I’ve upgraded to the head of the Ruby 1.8 branch this morning and the
problem seems to be resolved. So hopefully, things will improve in
the coming weeks.
It’s my fault this week’s quiz was two days late, so it will run for
an extra week to give people the time they need.
Sorry for the inconveniences.
James Edward G. II
On 6/24/07, James Edward G. II [email protected] wrote:
On Jun 23, 2007, at 11:29 PM, James Edward G. II wrote:
> Those of you following along closely have probably noticed that Ruby
> Quiz launches have been pretty problematic these last couple of
> weeks. The reason is that a bug in Ruby 1.8.6-p36 had crippled the
> Ruby Q. software and launches were pretty much happening by hand.
Forgive me to be astonished and overly curios, was there any
difficulty to make a fullback to a former version?
Cheers Robert
On Jun 24, 2007, at 12:16 PM, James Edward G. II wrote:
It’s my fault this week’s quiz was two days late, so it will run
for an extra week to give people the time they need.
Sorry for the inconveniences.
It’s not an inconvenience. I’m glad. I was going to pass on this one
because there was no chance I’d get something done by Wednesday. But
I think I can have something to submit by Wednesday after next.
Regards, Morton
On 6/24/07, Todd B. [email protected] wrote:
On 6/24/07, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky [email protected] wrote:
Yeah, I think Ruby/Tk runs on a Mac … but I have something a little
more diabolical in mind.
Here’s diabolical for you. Well, maybe not diabolical, but sinister
nonetheless.
I have to apologize a little bit for saying that. The post comes
across, I think, as a little cocky, and also suggests that I don’t
like Ruby. But I’ll defend myself by pointing out the ambiguity of
the quiz question. There are clearly many things we have to assume in
order to answer (I love that, BTW, and thank you James for challenging
us cleanly and yet still giving us free reign over our design).
What’s an attendee? So far, I have Paris Hilton’s dog on my test list
of “attendees”, the attendance acquired and paid for. On top of that,
Paris has two different – and possibly more – names for the poor
little fella. If he’s taking a pee while his name get’s called, does
he still get the gift? I also have a blind guy on my test list. I’m
not sure he would appreciate some fancy ascii art.
Thanks for making me think too much, you crazy Ruby programmers
Todd
On Jun 24, 2007, at 11:52 AM, Robert D. wrote:
difficulty to make a fullback to a former version?
Well, I upgraded from Ruby 1.8.5 because of a bug I ran into there.
It’s true that I could have gone back to Ruby 1.8.4, which is the
best release in recent years in my opinion, but that felt a little
behind the times.
James Edward G. II
On Jun 24, 2007, at 12:19 PM, Todd B. wrote:
What’s an attendee?
I don’t find this one two related to the problem. Whatever is in the
list your program gets passed is an attendee as far as you are
concerned, I would think.
If he’s taking a pee while his name get’s called, does
he still get the gift?
Typically, you must be present to win. The organizers will usually
just run the program again to get a new name.
James Edward G. II
On 6/24/07, James Edward G. II [email protected] wrote:
Maybe the next RubyQuiz is write the software to run RubyQuiz!