By Senior Editor – Kris Smith (@croncast)

Real-time technologies online are coming of age and why should Ruby be any different? With many hip developers choosing it as the technology for their next applications it makes sense that Ruby would get a gem for the real-time web.

RESTfulie is obviously designed to make the most or RESTful applications but is being described by its creators as a hypermedia tool.  One that will let client users change the state of their interaction with service data in real-time. This ability to change the data will in turn be refelcted in the the user experience.

Simply put the applications that are built on this platform have the ability to morph into ever changing processes that are controlled by the user. Think of it as a reality similar to that of a video game with programmed bounds. Players in that game can create new experiences every time that they play the game but they are not leaving its boundaries.

Hypermedia tools other than immersive gaming exist on the web in the form of Flash movies that move data back and forth in real-time to change report data and display layer objects. The creators of RESTfulie are taking advantage of this type of application by creating a tool that Ruby developers can run server-side to use the same power as Flash without it being Flash and Flex. BTW,  I am not even going to front like I understood the term ‘hypermedia’ before coming across RESTfulie.

This is accomplished with client-side code that is written in JavaScript to call AJAX like functionality except from the server-side RESTfulie gem. The core of the transfer of data between the server and the client can be done in the Atom spec. Which makes for a more open application when you consider the amount of data available in Atom format. You know, small companies like Google that love them some Atom.

The ability of RESTfulie to natively handle Atom gives a programmer the ability to being comingling service data from sources like Google with data in their own pool or that from the users. This is the magic of  RESTfulie. It is an opportunity for Ruby devs to get their hands on a simple tool that gives them the power to build new experiences and allows them to get on with helping to develop the next web.

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