Small REST applications that are designed from the ground up to be integrated with other apps. Usually, they are not directly useful on their own, but must be integrated into other applications (this is what differentiates a MicroApp from a REST app).

The following shows the basics of working with the raw CouchDb REST api from Ruby. If you want a richer interface that more tightly maps Couch documents into Ruby, you should check out the CouchDb-Ruby API

REST plays the same role as open source and open APIs: It eliminates tooling and vendoring as artificial barriers to adoption.