Oh, I should add: If you want to handle HTTP yourself, just use the net/http module in the Ruby standard library.
But I think you’ll find yourself writing repetitive blocks of code in calls that you make to it, because there are common REST and CouchDB patterns to a lot of the API calls. Stuff like “append database name and document ID to server URL, add common query params, send request, check result code, unpack JSON …" It’s easier to use a CouchDB client library that encapsulates that stuff for you. —Jens
