Format Ruby Code On Your Blog Postings Like The Cool Kids

I had noticed that almost all of the cool people post nicely formatted, color coded, beautiful looking Ruby code whenever they post.

Well, some of the cool people use a style of formatting that defies description...but I digress.

Anyhow, I looked at my poor pitiful postings, and felt like a second, or even third class citizen. Everybody's code is looking better than mine! What can be done?! Extreme makeover, Ruby CSS edition.

Mac developers who are using TextMate already have a built-in way to get back nicely formatted HTML. Does this mean they have built-in coolness? Yes it does. But for others who are using a different OS, or maybe an IDE like RadRails, there is also a solution.

On the Ruby Advent calendar site from last year, is a cool posting from Peter Cooper that allows you to submit some Ruby code thru a web page, and get back formatted HTML. Add a little bit of CSS to your page, and you too can be one of the cool people.

I had to modify the suggested CSS for my ultra-retro TTL terminal look that I usually set my editors up with. So my Ruby code went from this:

class Animal < DSLThing
 attr_accessor :name
 
 def initialize(name=nil)
  @name = name
 end
end

To this:

class Animal < DSLThing
 attr_accessor :name
 
 def initialize(name=nil)
  @name = name
 end
end

With my new CSS, I can now hopefully masquerade as one of the cool kids, and maybe even sneak into the club.