Joyent Slingshot allows developers to deploy online Rails applications like standard desktop applications. These work online and offline (with synchronization to online applications), have drag and drop, and interact with all the other desktop applications.

With Slingshot, a deveoper can create a hybrid Web/desktop application that can synchronize online and offline data and drag into and out of other desktop applications. Importantly developers use the same code for the online and offline application(s), and there's a mechanism for encrypting and updating remote applications.

Slingshot is like a virtual machine for a Rails application and provides a consistent and stable environment for a Rails application to run off Windows and/or Macintosh OS X. We remove all dependencies and conflicts with system binaries, and developers can customize their environment as they please.

Slingshot is a simple and lightweight mechanism to cleanly synchronize online and offline data. A developers provides an ActiveRecord transport layer allowing easy customization of the data that gets synced to an online application. With the addition of about thirty lines of code, a Rails application can sync data from client to server. With another thirty lines of code you synchronize have file-based data.

The framework also provides an extensible drag and drop abstraction layer. Hook into an application’s existing data import/ export mechanisms without necessarily modifying any application code.

Finally, it allows the developer to easily deploy code updates and migrations, no matter how long a user has been offline.

Scott will be discussing how any Rails developer can easily use slingshot and be presenting several case studies of applications.