Precious - Ruby, Gems and AWS

Ruby got a new face-lift with the new Rails framework. I was always fascinated with the Ruby language. 25 lines of Java code gets shrunk to 4 lines of equivalent Ruby code plus its more readable. And with Rails, it gets a new kick. It is always impressive to hear people say "I am a full-time Ruby on Rails Developer".

There are plenty of resources for those who would like to get started on this technology:

There are lots of Amazon S3 libraries in Ruby: Some are full fledged libraries like AWS:S3 (Marcel Molina of 37signals talks about his library and why he chose Amazon S3 here - worth a read!), while some libraries are getting started types so that you can customize as per your needs. Some are command shell utilities like rSh3ll, while some are gems like S33r and ruby-s3 for easy installation.

Zachary Holt created a powerful library for Amazon SQS in Ruby. He has added some cool utility functions such as ability to forcibly delete a queue etc.

If you would like to get started with Ruby/Rails on Amazon EC2 instance, all you have to do is fire up an instance and type "yum install ruby" and you are all set!. To get Rails, follow two additional steps mentioned here.

Ruby on Rails reduces your development time and gets you up and running in minutes. There are several apps which have been built using Ruby and Rails framework. Some that caught my eye were:

• All new! SmilePooling - SmilePooling connects Amazon's "smily boxes" (read sidetrack below) and Amazon ECS's WishLists with the car-pooling concept. It is a web application to order items from Amazon stores for you and your friends and colleagues, so that you can split the shipping costs and save. Nice idea, isn't it ?
• Competitio.us - simple handy tool to track your competition. Competitio.us is powered by the Alexa Web Information Service and the Alexa Thumbnail service. It gives all sorts of traffic data and other information for your competitor's website.

Are there any other cool Ruby on Rails applications powered by AWS ?

--Jinesh

Sidetrack: Have you guys noticed the amazon.com logo and wondered what the arrow signifies? I did not know until now. The arrow means Amazon has everything from A to Z and it also represents the smile it brings to the customer's face - Quite deep, isn't it?

update: Also, one more  -  Ruby/Amazon - Amazon ECS library in Ruby.

Comments

[Thomas]

"Are there any other cool Ruby on Rails applications powered by AWS ?"

Ummmm, let's see? UNSPUN, perhaps?
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/138-amazon-goes-unspun-with-ruby-on-rails

[Fred Oliveira]

We've been working with EC2 since the first day of beta, and our project management application - Goplan - runs on the system. We're quite happy about it, I've been meaning to write a post about our experience for a while now.

More info on goplan is here: http://blog.goplan.org

[Dominic Da Silva]

rSh3ll is now hosted at RubyForge:

http://rubyforge.org/projects/rsh3ll/

Thanks.
-D

[Matt Rubens]

"Are there any other cool Ruby on Rails applications powered by AWS ?"

I can't resist putting in a quick plug for Jamglue (http://www.jamglue.com/). We're an online music mixing community using S3 for media storage and streaming and EC2 for backend processing. Working with S3 and EC2 has been an absolute pleasure so far (and easy on the wallet).

Thanks, Amazon!

[John Doe]

Regarding the Logo

THAT IS VERY COOL, HANDS DOWN!

[Glenn Rempe]

Just wanted to add to the list of Ruby tools for Amazon Web Services the new Amazon-EC2 Ruby Gem that I packaged up this week. It allows for easy installation and use of the Amazon sample library for accessing EC2 through the new Query API.

The code is released under the Ruby license and is being managed as an open source project on RubyForge. Check out the simple install and usage instructions at:

http://amazon-ec2.rubyforge.org/

The first enhancements released for the library include the fix for a bug found in the original sample code as well as a full set of RubyDocs.

A simple 'gem install amazon-ec2' is all you need to get started using EC2 from your Ruby or Rails application.

Enjoy,

Glenn
glenn@elasticworkbench.com

[rob]

Wow this is cool. Gems are really getting popular.. somebody just created a gem version of the popular s3sync. Read the blog http://www.clipclip.org/MingsVille/clips/detail/11907