Its great to get news of an official Adobe supported Ruby based RIA SDK. I have been looking at Ruby and Rails for a few months now, long after Stuart Eccles over at LiveRail.net said I should be looking at it. Those that saw his presentation at LFPUG will understand why. For those that didn't see it, try and check out the video.

What I saw that evening was pretty incredible. Stuart had been raving about "6 Minute Apps" for some time, I couldn't believe it when, as his presentation Stuart built an app there and then. From scratch. Database, server logic, flex front end. End to end database driven flex RIA. All that was needed was a bit of beatification and you would have been good to go.

What made it incredible? Well firstly Stuart wrote very little code, most of it was defined in the Ruby Scaffolds that get auto generated as part of a basic application framework. Secondly this was a real world useful app. the type you could imagine a client asking for. Thirdly, Stuart is neither a flash or flex developer. He has only really been looking at flex recently and yet quite plainly he is a man knows how to integrate seemingly disparate technologies in order to produce a useful product.

A great example of choosing the right technology (tool) for the job.

If you are looking at making use of the Ruby SDK I would highly recommend heading over to LiveRail.net to check out Stu's tutorials on Ruby and Flex. They have been up for a while, but now I believe they are even more relevant. While your at it I can highly recommend picking up the some books on Ruby development too. Ive been plugging through Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide that and it certainly does a great job of setting you on the right track. Although I have also heard good things of Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition as well.