karmi

What's wrong with Ruby libraries for CouchDB?

During the last year, I have worked on couple of Ruby/Rails based projects where the primary datastore was CouchDB. CouchDB, to me, is a dream database for web developer come true. The simplicity, the HTTP-based API, the abandonment of SQL semantics, the inspiring community, that all reminds me of when I came into Rails years ago.

However, working with Couch in Ruby and Rails is very, very painful, in my opinion. I'd like to briefly summarize some of my frustrations here. Maybe they are shared, maybe not -- if they are, I think we should launch some coordinate effort to make using Couch in Ruby a pleasure and intelectual satisfaction, not endless loops of research and hacks to „make it work“.

Please note, that my interest is solely to stir the debate. I may be severely mistaken in any point. But, I'd like using Couch in a Ruby application to be a joy, not a frustration, which is what I've met more times than I'd ha

brandondrew

#!/bin/bash
###########################################################
# TRIBUNE-SPECIFIC BUILD HOME script:
# This script sets up your home directory fast with basic 
# necessities and amenities, to give you sanity when you
# work on a Unix box where you don't have root access.
###########################################################
# TO USE:
# curl https://raw.github.com/gist/259348/build_home.sh | bash
# OR:

bmizerany

require 'sinatra/base'

run Sinatra.new {
  get('/') do
    content_type "text/plain" # you can also use Rack::ContentType
                              # with Sinatra except here we want
                              # more control since Sinatra gives it
                              # to us.  Rack::ContentType sets the
                              # Content-Type on every route/url for
                              # the current mapping.

perezd

require 'rubygems'
require 'activerecord'

ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(
    :adapter => 'mysql',
    :host => 'localhost',
    :username => 'root',
    :database => 'craigslist'
)

pauldix

require 'feedzirra'

# fetching a single feed
feed = Feedzirra::Feed.fetch_and_parse("http://feeds.feedburner.com/PaulDixExplainsNothing")

# feed and entries accessors
feed.title          # => "Paul Dix Explains Nothing"
feed.url            # => "http://www.pauldix.net"
feed.feed_url       # => "http://feeds.feedburner.com/PaulDixExplainsNothing"
feed.etag           # => "GunxqnEP4NeYhrqq9TyVKTuDnh0"