Vincent Foley wrote:
> Well, I finally did it, I released my first open source software, <a
> href="http://ljrb.rubyforge.org">RJournal</a>.

Congratulations! :)

> I also have a few questions regarding testing in the application: since
> most operations have side effects (posting a new message to a journal,
> creating a config file, an history file, updating an history file,
> etc.), how do you effectively test those cases?  Any input regarding
> this will be much appreciated.

Assuming you are using unit tests [you ARE using unit tests, right? ;)], 
you would need to use mock objects. An example of this concept is my 
submission to the HighLine Ruby Quiz. In my case I rolled my own mock 
object, but it might be better to use a library, such as this:

http://www.b13media.com/dev/ruby/mock.html

But I think the above still needs to be updated for Test::Unit (I think 
it is using the older RubyUnit.)

Ryan