The 3rd edition marked the beginning of a new association between Rubyize this and RefactorMyCode. I did things in a rather clumsy manner, telling people about how cool RmC was while asking them to use pastie to submit their refactored version of the code. At that time I didn’t realize that RmC and Rubyize this were ready to work together.
Well, RmC is now the official way to submit your rubyized solution. With the trackback system in place, a link to your refactored code will appear here at the moment you hit the submit button on RmC.
Before diving into the 4th edition, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the results of the 3rd one. We started with something pretty ugly that turned onto something pretty awesome!. On a side note, I really liked how some participants transformed the already mean sentence into something even meaner. As an exemple, the test sentence was : « You truly are a moron, sir! » and someone changed it to « you truly are a stupid moron sir! ». Someone else add fuel to the fire by writing « you truly are a ‘stupid’ moron, stupid sir! ». And finally, someone went as far as to write : « Stupid wabbit! Stupid, stupid, stupid! ». The situation was completely uncontrollable!
Enough said. Let’s get the ball rolling.
I have an array of insects and I want to be able to display on the screen the name, the iq and the annoyance factor of every members of a certain type. This “solution” works but has a ruby rating of 0.5/5. Moreover, it only works for butterflies… which feels rather incomplete and limiting. Remove stuff, add stuff and move stuff around. This dumb code must get smart and pretty!

class Bug
	attr_accessor :type
	attr_accessor :name
	attr_accessor :iq
	attr_accessor :annoyance_factor
	def initialize(name,type,iq,annoyance_factor)
		if !type
			@type="spider"
		else
			@type=type
		end
		if !name
			@name="unnamed"
		else
			@name=name
		end
		if !iq
			@iq = 8
		else
			@iq = iq
		end
		if !annoyance_factor
			@annoyance_factor = 4
		else
			@annoyance_factor = annoyance_factor
		end
	end
end
def keep_butterflies(bugs)
	butterflies = Array.new
	bugs.each do |bug|
		if bug.type == "butterfly"
			butterflies.push(bug)
		end
	end
	return butterflies
end
#create some bugs!
bugs = Array.new
bugs.push(Bug.new("ron","spider","4","2"))
bugs.push(Bug.new("don","spider","2","3"))
bugs.push(Bug.new("jake","ant","9","4"))
bugs.push(Bug.new("chris","ladybug","2","4"))
bugs.push(Bug.new("fred","cockchaffer","0","5"))
bugs.push(Bug.new("greg","butterfly","2","0"))
bugs.push(Bug.new("jason","butterfly","0","2"))
butterflies=keep_butterflies(bugs)
butterflies.each do |butterfly|
	puts "I am a butterfly and my name is #{butterfly.name}. I have an IQ of #{butterfly.iq} and an annoyance factor of #{butterfly.annoyance_factor}"
end

Give it a shot now!

It’s time for another phenomenal edition of the fantastic Rubyize this serie (how humble is that?)
But before we go any further, I’d like to briefly talk about a brand new web 2.0 rails app that has been developed by Marc-André Cournoyer, a Ruby/Rails guru from Montreal. The app is called RefactorMyCode and became instantly popular among the coding community. The principle behind : People submit chunks of their own code that they would wish to see improved. Every members can then try their luck and submit their refactored version of the code. Marc told me that the Rubyize this serie partly inspired him in the creation of this application… it’s always cool to hear things like that!
Ok, now here is what we have to rubyize today :

def remove_insults(input)
   ctr = 0
   input.each do |word|
     word = word.downcase
     if word == "stupid" || word == "moron" || word == "dumbass" || word == "retard"
       i=0
       word.length.times do
          input[ctr][i,1] = "*"
          i+=1
       end
     end
     ctr += 1
   end
   puts input.join(" ").to_s
end
remove_insults "you truly are a moron sir!".split(" ")

Yikes! Pretty ugly this week… that’s how I like them.
IMPORTANT!
Wordpress doesn’t want that you write code… I suggest that you use RefactorMyCode to post your solution instead. You can also use pastie and just write a comment here with the URL to your snippet. The trackbacks are working correctly now so I strongly suggest that you use RefactorMyCode.
If for some reasons you do not wish to use RmC or Pastie, here are some precautions you should take :

1. Code indentation with spaces doesn’t work. Use another character… an underscore maybe?
2. Do not use <% or %> (it shouldn’t be a problem this week)
3. COPY your code in your clipboard before sending it for safety measure… that way if wordpress screw up your code, you will be able to post it again rapidly by just removing what WordPress doesn’t like

Have fun!