What you'll learn

Imagine a world where there is no SQL. Your database doesn't have a schema. You don't have to worry about indexes. Replication is built-in. Scaling is part of the plan from day one. This is the world promised to you by CouchDB, an Apache Foundation incubator project in the genre of Amazon's SimpleDB (but open source!). You'll learn how to install CouchDB from source, how to use the CouchRest gem, and you'll build a personal notes application that uses CouchDB. You'll learn about different ways to serialize Ruby objects to JSON. You'll write custom views in Javascript and synchronize them to your database. Oh, and you'll also learn a bit about the daring personal history behind the CouchDB project! Whether you're planning to use CouchDB on an upcoming Ruby project or just want to be informed about current developments in database technology, you'll find it in this course.