Chapter 14. Internet Services

Network programming is hard. The C socket library is the standard way of writing Internet clients and servers. It's like the file API descibed in Chapter 6, with its special flags and meager abstraction, only much more complicated. It's a shame because networked applications are the coolest kind of application. Only computer nerds like you and me care about XML or the best way to sort a list, but everyone uses Internet applications.

Fortunately, network programming is easy. Ruby provides bindings to the C socket library (in socket), but you'll probably never need to use them. Existing Ruby libraries (some in the standard distribution) can speak every popular high-level Internet protocol.