I needed to get a version number from a REST service just yesterday. My
solution looks like this:
> $current_version = inline_template("<% require 'open-uri' %><%= open('${version_url}') { |f| f.each_line.to_a.join.strip } %>")
That's obviously only a GET request, but it works remarkably well and
(contrary to Net::HTTP) supports and validates SSL certificates out of
the box.
Regards, David