Sometimes you don’t need a database. Maybe you’re building a prototype or a simple internal application. Using a Google Spreadsheet can be quicker and easier to set up and get going with.

In this tutorial we’ll use Hiroshi Ichikawa’s google_drive Ruby gem to read, write and delete data from a Google Spreadsheet with just a few lines of code.

Accessing your Spreadsheet

First you’ll need a spreadsheet to read from and write to. If you don’t have your own spreadsheet, make a copy of this spreadsheet of contact information for US legislators. (That’s a useful set of data if you want to make it easy to call Congress like Ian Webster.)

Create a directory to build this project in.