open(‘http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=’ + q + ‘&output=’ + format + ‘&key=’ + key) {|f|
f.each_line {|line|
result = line.split(‘,’)
}
}

The output option is nice. I default to ‘csv’ which ruby handles easely since I am only interested in the longitude and latitude, but you can get XML and JSON.

The rest of the script is just picking up command line options and output. Which by the way, it looks like Ruby could really use a nice command line options interface. It has 2, but it would be nice to have something built in that is stupid simple. GetoptLong is identical to get_optlong(), and and OptionParser seems to be the new kid on the block, but the documentation is horrid. Or maybe its just too rubish for my understanding at this time. But back to the topic…
Geotagging appears to be a growing trend, but it appears that there is no standard format of specifyinc this information. Any clues out there of what are the best options to geotag pages? Or even blog posts (that would be cooler then a page since you can write a blog from almost anywhere).

Update:

Interesting links:
geocoder.us
geocoder.ca
feedmap
plazes

During the Bubble, a lot of people predicted that startups would outsource their development to India. I think a better model for the future is David Heinemeier Hansson, who outsourced his development to a more powerful language instead. A lot of well-known applications are now, like Basecamp, written by just one programmer. And one guy is more than 10x cheaper than ten, because (a) he won’t waste any time in meetings, and (b) since he’s probably a founder, he can pay himself nothing.

Then via Jason from 37Signals:

Why toss an app over the pond to a programmer body shop in India when you can do it here at home with one guy? That’s what Ruby on Rails lets you do. And that’s one of the reasons we open-sourced it. Everyone can benefit. We not only want to make software that’s dead simple to use, we want to make tools that make it dead simple to write software.