> 1) How do you compare types? i.e.
> 
> w = nil
> x = "foo" if w != nil # still assigns foo to x

Are you sure you tested the above snippit carefully? It works fine on my
computer; however, I wanted to mention that since nil and false are both
untrue, you don't actually need to make the comparison to nil. I.e.,

w = nil
x = "foo" unless w

or

x = "foo" if not w

Cheers,
Travis