This example code is from Martin Fowler's book "Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code". It is in the state you see at the beginning of Chapter 1. Original version by David Koontz, available at: http://david.koontz.name/home/Projects/Entries/2008/4/13_Photo_of_the_Day.html 2010-0513 Ported to Ruby for 810:188 (Summer 2010) by Eugene Wallingford.