# Architecture advice for my grand ambition **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [April 25, 2006, 8:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/architecture-advice-for-my-grand-ambition/58717 "2006-04-25T08:19:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![russ](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e36b37/32.png) [@russ](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/russ)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/architecture-advice-for-my-grand-ambition/58717/1 "2006-04-25T08:19:32Z")
. . . o.k., well maybe it’s not _that_ ambitious. The plan is to merge the rapid GUI-building speed of Runtime’s Revolution with Ruby, or at the very least Active Record as an intermediary layer for calls to the db for the desktop apps that I write in Revolution. In the long run I’d like to perhaps build an “external” that allows intermingling of Revolution code (called Transcript) and Ruby. I’ve built one production RonR app so I’m not totally clueless about Ruby and Active Record but I’m still looking for general architectural advice. Issue #1: How to access Ruby? I can open sockets from Revolution so perhaps the simplest option would be to open a socket in rev and then have a daemon running on the socket that routes the calls to irb(?) and then returns the results. Another option is to embed a Ruby interpreter, an option the Pick Axe book describes. But this means a funky multi-layer bridge: Revolution\<—\>C code\<—\>Ruby. On the other hand would be nice if I could have a configuration file and a set of model files as in RonR. I guess I could alternatively set up an RonR system and then have it return Ruby output instead of HTML. Issue #2: Where to to access Ruby? I could set things up so that each desktop app makes calls to a locally installed Ruby, or each app could make calls to the the same server running ruby. The latter seems to make more sense. Any opinions appreciated. Cheers, russ