That's not a Ruby issue, it's a cowsay issue. Unix base supports it, Windows doesn't. Ruby actually has a great deployment system. And the author's general point, despite him being an obvious Ruby programmer, is that efficiency and confidence are more important than scrambling to cover your bases, and what the latter means in coding behavior. The examples would differ, but his point is universal.
Mea culpa. I did not realize that it was an interface to cowsay, instead of an implementation of it.
There is something to say to say about using a platform-dependent utility for a talk of an eminently portable language, but i do not think that is necessary here.
