gem sources

Riot is a new Ruby test framework by Justin Knowlden that focuses on faster testing.

Justin was frustrated with his slow running test suites, despite employing techniques such as using factories, mocks and avoiding database access.

He realized that a slow-running suite makes one reluctant to run it or expand it - not good.

Last week, the latest version of Ruby packaging library/tool, RubyGems, was released. Version 1.3.2 not only has a bunch of bug fixes (including supporting https URLs for gem sources) and improvements, but a number of new features.

Want to install Ruby, RubyGems, and a collection of common gems on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) in just a few minutes?

Here's the skinny.

Feedzirra is an all-new Ruby feed parsing (it's not a generator) library by Paul Dix.

The choice of feed parsing libraries in Ruby has been reasonably limited so far, so Feedzirra is a most welcome addition to the Ruby ecosystem.

Recently, Yahoo! launched BOSS - the "Build Your Own Search Service." In all but name, it appears very similar to their older Yahoo!

Search API, as it allows you to query Yahoo's search index programatically.