Monday, October 27, 2008

Ruby on SQL Data Services SDK

A few months back, I embarked on a mission to get these Ruby samples produced as I felt it was important to show the flexibility and open nature of SDS.  The problem was that I have no practical experience with Ruby.  With this in mind, I looked to my friend, former co-worker, and Ruby pro, James Avery to get this done.  He did a terrific job as the developer and I am happy to present this today.

With the announcement today at PDC of the Azure Services Platform, we are releasing a set of Ruby samples for SQL Data Services (SDS), formerly called SSDS.  We are putting the source on GitHub, and the samples will be available as gems from RubyForge.

The samples really consist of a number of moving parts:

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At the core of the samples is a Ruby REST library for SDS.  It performs the main plumbing to using the service.  Next, we have two providers for building applications: an ActiveRecord provider and an ActiveResource provider.  These providers make use of the Ruby REST library for SDS.

Finally, we have two samples that make use of the providers.  We have built a version of RadiantCMS that uses the ActiveRecord provider and a simple task list sample that shows how to use the ActiveResource provider.

To get started:

  1. Visit GitHub and download sds-tasks or sds-radiant.
  2. View the Readme file in the sample as it will direct you to download Rails and some of other pre-requisites.
  3. Use the gem installers to download the sds-rest library.
  4. Set some configuration with your SDS username/password (now called Azure Solution name and password when you provision).
  5. That's it!  Just run the ruby script server and see how REST and Ruby works with SDS.

NOTE:  PDC folks can get provisioned for SQL Services and .NET Services by visiting the labs and getting a provisioning code.  This is exclusive to PDC attendees until the beta.

I will look to James to provide a few posts and details on how he built it.  Thanks again James!

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