Factorial

Amazon should have named it ScalableDB instead of SimpleDB.
simple actually means, zero learning curve, standard features and sample code to get started.

this time around Amazon did not offer any ruby library, nor any ruby specific code on their getting started guide(php,perl,dotnet,java got their share).
So I am building a ruby ActiveRecord interface to SimpleDB, as all our apps are rails driven

What I wanted
my idea is not moving the whole database to simpledb but move only certain large tables and denormalise them as per requirements.

I see a good use for this style app in user generated content space, like fickr, youtube, digg, facebook.

what I missed initially, datatypes(date, numeric, blobs), lack of schema and thus validations.

I have tried to solve my itch and solution for scalability for our clients.

completion state
I have implemented the following

a) creating new instance and saving them
c) schema enforcement(SimpleDB does not do schema)
d) Validation
e) simple find
f) find all(1+ N requests currently)

pending features
things which I plan to build in coming days

a) simple query
b) update(only save works, need to get the update syntax right)

build one large app(in terms of content) with minimal effort leveraging EC2, SimpleDB and S3