This Week’s Ruby Quiz is to create something creative XMas related in Ruby. Glen F. Pankow came with the following solution:

You can check out / download the code from here – which btw prints the following poem:
On the first day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: A new version of Ruby! On the second day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the third day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the fourth day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the fifth day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Five Ruby gems! Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the sixth day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Six marshals dumping Five Ruby gems! Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the seventh day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Seven ducks a-typing Six marshals dumping Five Ruby gems! Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the eighth day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Eight dirs a-globbing Seven ducks a-typing Six marshals dumping Five Ruby gems! Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the ninth day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Nine ranges stepping Eight dirs a-globbing Seven ducks a-typing Six marshals dumping Five Ruby gems! Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the tenth day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Ten trys a-catching Nine ranges stepping Eight dirs a-globbing Seven ducks a-typing Six marshals dumping Five Ruby gems! Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the eleventh day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Eleven ios piping Ten trys a-catching Nine ranges stepping Eight dirs a-globbing Seven ducks a-typing Six marshals dumping Five Ruby gems! Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby! On the twelveth day of Matzmas my true love gave to me: Twelve monkeys patching Eleven ios piping Ten trys a-catching Nine ranges stepping Eight dirs a-globbing Seven ducks a-typing Six marshals dumping Five Ruby gems! Four calling procs Three forked threads Two string gsubs And a new version of Ruby!
Hats down before this solution, I really bow down to Glen’s creativity and technique – the only problem is that I find the bar too high (and the time is too little) to submit a solution this time :-).
Anyway, happy XMas time everyone!
For some reason it never occurred to me that it was possible to obfuscate ruby this hard.