Should I build Flash-based chat with rubyAMF?

Question

just what the question says, but here is more info -

project involves creating a Flash front-end to a RESTful Rails app that will load banner ads, twitter feed, list of movies, etc. all read-only as far as Flash is concerned (for now).

There will also be a live chat window with the ability to create private rooms.

Is there anything out there that gets me started with this? or is it the wrong way to go? searching does not turn up much so I am wondering where to begin. (first time exposed to AMF and fairly green with Actionscript/Flash as yet)

Answer 1

You can also use XMLSocket and create something like this. A socket is good for quick updates/feedback, but in general less fool-proof than polling. I'm not sure if rubyAMF is handling sockets or HTTP requests or maybe both?

Building a simple chat is a fun project, but if you need it to be scalable and for example also working behind firewalls or other non-fun stuff you might want to look into using a complete (commercial) solution, possibly running separate from your Rails app.