5 ms·

Rails and Merb Merge

155 points by jarnold 18y ago

awt 18y ago
I hope the result ends up being mostly merb. It is just so much cleaner...
undertoad 18y ago
Rails: Merb, _I_ am your father. Merb: Nooooooooooo!
mechanical_fish 18y ago
I'm modding this up because one of these submissions needs to win, so that we know where the conversation should go.
jon_dahl 18y ago
Wow, big news. I'm mixed on this. One of the strengths of Rails was that it was the dominant Ruby web programming framework. This meant that virtually the entire community was behind Rails when it came to web app development - unlike some other languages, which have several frameworks competing for the crown. But Merb has recently started to give Rails a run for its money. Fortunately, the learning curve between Merb and Rails is relatively small. So on the one hand, it's great that the Ruby community won't splinter between two competing frameworks. But on the other hand, Merb was really creative and innovative, and I'd hate to see that innovation slow down as it becomes the Establishment.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  Merb was really creative and innovative, and I'd hate to see that innovation slow down as it becomes the Establishment. All innovations either become Establishment or remain obscure. I'm perfectly happy to see Merb go Establishment. If it doesn't work out... it's not as if the project won't be forked again. Innovation won't stop. It will just have a different name and perhaps some different principals.
  - jon_dahl 18y ago
    Innovation won't stop. It will just have a different name and perhaps some different principals. That's exactly my hope.
    - gry 18y ago
      If, heaven forbid, Merb's best doesn't make it to Rails and it falls fallow, I have a hunch Merb takes root again. There are too many SCM clones and forks for it to disappear. Granted, time and energy is lost. Yet along the way, there'll be another Merb. Sometimes a spoon is a better fork.
- KevBurnsJr 18y ago
  lol @ Rails being called "the Establishment"
- jm4 18y ago
  How can the Ruby community splinter between two competing web frameworks? The entire Ruby-using population does not need to agree on a web framework. There can be smaller communities around various projects and frameworks within the Ruby community. In fact, I would think that it would be vital to Ruby's advancement and evolution. You mention that Rails being the dominant web framework is a strength and in the same sentence remark about how with other languages there are multiple competing frameworks. How, exactly, does this negatively impact developers? On the flip side, how does a merger between Rails and Merb positively impact developers? Developers who don't like Rails had an alternative in Merb and vice versa. How is the elimination of a choice a good thing? The way I see it, competition here is only a good thing. Why would anyone want Rails to be the only option-- or even the de facto standard-- when it's been shown to be exactly the wrong tool for the job in several high profile scenarios? Don't get me wrong-- I'm not bashing Rails. I'm just saying it's a good thing to have a few more tools in the toolbox. When your only tool is a hammer everything starts looking like nails.
  - chaostheory 18y ago
    the problem of too much choice: http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/09/barry-schwartz-on-why-too-much-choice.php http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/09/barry-schwartz-on-why-too-m...
    - jm4 18y ago
      That's a completely valid problem, but at best it's debatable whether it applies to Ruby web frameworks. There's not exactly a plethora of mature web frameworks available. Rails and Merb seemed to be the most firmly established frameworks with a few others like Sinatra, Camping and Ramaze sprouting up. I think the too much choice problem applies much more when you're installing a Linux distribution and you have to choose from 40 different text editors or IM clients. Who has the time or the inclination to evaluate each one?
  - carbon8 18y ago
    Well, Rack is really changing a lot already with Ruby frameworks. Sinatra is becoming more popular for highly specialized apps, and now you can embed Sinatra and Camping apps into other Rack apps, which includes Rails edge apps. Basically what's happening is that everything in Ruby is already becoming more modular, shifting toward organized APIs, so this helps move in a direction where you can basically build a customized framework like legos out of a bunch of gems and specialized apps without spending an inordinate amount of time trying to patch things to work together.
- petercooper 18y ago
  That's alright, we have Sinatra for innovation now: http://sinatra.rubyforge.org/ http://sinatra.rubyforge.org/
mdemare 18y ago
Impressive! How often do you hear about two open-source projects merging? Forking is much more common. I can't even recollect other instances of merging. Best of luck to the two teams with making it work!
- jm4 18y ago
  Compiz and Beryl. Beryl forked from Compiz and, if I remember correctly, relations were very sour between the two projects. Several months later they merged into Compiz Fusion.
- tlrobinson 18y ago
  KHTML and WebKit (though I'm not sure what the status of the "unforking" is): http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/07/23/the-unforking-of-kdes-khtml-and-webkit http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/07/23/the-unf...
- dabeeeenster 18y ago
  WebWork and Struts merged to become Struts 2...
  - rapind 18y ago
    This is the best comparison. Struts was great when it came out and inspired a lot of 2nd gen frameworks like Webwork. Webwork was very clever and much improved over struts. However, struts was far more popular. Bringing the two together created a better product that was adopted by the mainstream java web developers. It was a great way to get the developers that were stuck on struts (for whatever reason, most likely to support existing code bases) into a better design. In about a year I could write the paragraph above substituting rails for struts, merb for webwork, and java for ruby.
- davidw 18y ago
  gcc forked at one point, and was subsequently merged back into the main branch. Still, though, it's not an everyday thing.
- cosmo7 18y ago
qhoxie 18y ago
Hop in #merb and #rubyonrails for commentary from wycats and dhh. Lots of good discussion.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
nickb 18y ago
Well, this move has cemented Rails' future as the best web framework there is. What an awesome move! Congrats to Merb & Rails teams!
Locke 18y ago
Wow, I almost wish it were April Fools Day... For someone who loves Merb and had decided to leave Rails behind (as much as possible), I have very mixed feelings about this. If this means Rails will start to feel more like Merb, fantastic! Otherwise? I have a feeling it'll be a long while before I really know how to feel about this... It'll be interesting to see how well this merger actually works in practice. It seems like when large companies merge the results are often underwhelming. Can a merger of large open source projects work? Will the different cultures clash?
- undertoad 18y ago
  Ramaze
- tlrobinson 18y ago
  It's open source... fork it. I'm sure someone will.
  - carbon8 18y ago
    Well, there are already over 400 Rails forks on github. ;-)
    - tlrobinson 18y ago
      Yes, but someone needs to step up and build a community for it to be a viable fork. There's a difference between someone forking Rails on GitHub so they can say "look at me, I maintain my own fork of Rails" (like 99% of those Rails "forks") and a legitimate open source project.
- thomasmallen 18y ago
  Merb will continue to be maintained and improved: "To be perfectly clear: we are not abandoning the Merb project. There are many production applications running on Merb that are relying on both timely bug fixes and a clear path to the future. If you’re using Merb today, continue using Merb. If you’re considering using Merb for a project because it works better for your needs, use Merb. You will not be left in the cold and we’re going to do everything to make sure that your applications don’t get stuck in the past." What this really means is that Merb will do what they should as an open-source project: Integrating with another. But for Merb's changes to Rails to be effective, they will have to continually improve Merb in isolation. Merb's going nowhere.
KevBurnsJr 18y ago
Sounds like they smelled some code duplication and committed to a cross-project refactoring. Exciting to see some smart people uniting over respect for a common problem.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
jarnold 18y ago
More links: http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/12/23/merb-gets-merged-into-rails-3 http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/12/23/merb-gets-merged-in... http://yehudakatz.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/ http://yehudakatz.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/ http://rubyonrails.org/merb http://rubyonrails.org/merb http://merbist.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/ http://merbist.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/ http://brainspl.at/articles/2008/12/23/merb-is-rails http://brainspl.at/articles/2008/12/23/merb-is-rails http://loriholden.com/archives/2008/12/23/16-merb-is-rails-30 http://loriholden.com/archives/2008/12/23/16-merb-is-rails-3... http://mornini.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/rails-2x-merb-1x-rails-30/ http://mornini.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/rails-2x-merb-1x-rai... http://splendificent.com/2008/12/the-merb-rails-merger-announcement-an-inside-opinion/ http://splendificent.com/2008/12/the-merb-rails-merger-annou...
bprater 18y ago
Wow, completely unexpected! Very exciting!
thomasmallen 18y ago
If you can't beat 'em...
mikhailov 18y ago
It's really great! http://www.railsgeek.com http://www.railsgeek.com
jhancock 18y ago
so much for "no code is faster than no code"
ruby_roo 18y ago
Can't wait for Zed to weigh in!
- nailer 18y ago
  Wait no longer. Zed has spoken: http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/index.html http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/index.html
cglee 18y ago
I love this. I was just torn about learning Merb and worried about how the Rails community was slowing down. This should inject some much needed energy as well as introduce some of Merb's awesome features into Rails. Great move.
tlrobinson 18y ago
My brain knows it's the middle of December, but I had to check to make sure it wasn't April 1st. This is exactly the type of headline we see every year on April 1st. Crazy that it's real.
tlrobinson 18y ago
I once heard someone suggest that the "Rails" architecture should just be a standard that could be implemented for any language. This seems to be a step in that direction. Sounds pretty good to me.
jackowayed 18y ago
So, I posted this on one of the threads for other blog posts about this, but that tread doesn't have much going on, and I want to see what people have to say about it: I'm a merbist and think this will be good for both the Merb and Rails communities. That said, I'm a little afraid it will shaft the other Ruby frameworks (Sinatra, Camping) and possibly straight ruby too. People might make interesting things only compatible with Rails. When Merb was a pretty big, active minority, it was more compelling to go out of one's way to make interesting libraries (ORMs, gems, etc.) easily compatible with anything ruby. Now, people might at the least write things specifically setup for use w/ rails in such a way that it's inconvenient to nonrails ruby, and at worst make Rails plugins for things that could be useful libraries for all of Ruby. Rails is gaining modularity, but I fear Ruby overall might lose it. Even after Rails and Merb merge, rails!=ruby.
- mileszs 18y ago
  There are plenty of people in the Ruby community who avoid Rails (whether their reasons are valid or not). I think you'll find plenty of Rubyists who wish to create things outside of Rails. Whether that means they will be throwing weight behind another framework such as Ramaze, or creating a new one, I can't say. I do believe that there are enough anti-mainstream hackers in the mix now that you don't have to worry about that "scene" dying. You're one of them, to an extent, and there's nothing wrong with that. Have at it.
mpk 18y ago
This is awesome. Merb has become the 'go to' framework for Rails developers like myself who are unsatisfied with several Rails design choices. However, the technical differences between the two are actually not that big. A merge of Merb and Rails concepts sounds like a good thing, all 'round. Three cheers for open-source development and civil relationships between developers.
juliend2 18y ago
this is huge. and it turns out that yesterday i was considering learning merb instead of rails. but for the moment i will learn rails. what is the best one to learn at the moment in order to be ready for rails 3?
- mileszs 18y ago
  Both. They're both Ruby. The learning curve for one over the other changes very little ultimately. In practice, however, Merb docs, tutorials, articles, howtos, et cetera, are lacking. That is reality. If you're starting from scratch w/ Ruby and her frameworks, you'll probably find Rails more newbie-friendly from a learning-materials standpoint.
  - juliend2 18y ago
    Interesting, Thanks!
allertonm 18y ago
Do I detect the hand of Benchmark Capital here? Edit: I wrote the orginal comment in a hurry - but what I was getting at was that Engine Yard took quite a bit of cash from Benchmark. I somehow doubt that a move like this could have happened without their approval, and I have to wonder if they instigated it (and why...)
- ksvs 18y ago
  Hmmm. http://www.benchmark.com/news/sv/2008/10_21_2008.php http://www.benchmark.com/news/sv/2008/10_21_2008.php
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
mikhailov 18y ago
DHH confirmed to going with current logo. Are that guy delirious? http://url.davegrey.com?06609 http://url.davegrey.com?06609

155 points by jarnold 18y ago

awt 18y ago

I hope the result ends up being mostly merb. It is just so much cleaner...

undertoad 18y ago

Rails: Merb, _I_ am your father. Merb: Nooooooooooo!

mechanical_fish 18y ago

I'm modding this up because one of these submissions needs to win, so that we know where the conversation should go.

jon_dahl 18y ago

Wow, big news. I'm mixed on this. One of the strengths of Rails was that it was the dominant Ruby web programming framework. This meant that virtually the entire community was behind Rails when it came to web app development - unlike some other languages, which have several frameworks competing for the crown. But Merb has recently started to give Rails a run for its money. Fortunately, the learning curve between Merb and Rails is relatively small. So on the one hand, it's great that the Ruby community won't splinter between two competing frameworks. But on the other hand, Merb was really creative and innovative, and I'd hate to see that innovation slow down as it becomes the Establishment.

mechanical_fish 18y ago
Merb was really creative and innovative, and I'd hate to see that innovation slow down as it becomes the Establishment. All innovations either become Establishment or remain obscure. I'm perfectly happy to see Merb go Establishment. If it doesn't work out... it's not as if the project won't be forked again. Innovation won't stop. It will just have a different name and perhaps some different principals.
- jon_dahl 18y ago
  Innovation won't stop. It will just have a different name and perhaps some different principals. That's exactly my hope.
  - gry 18y ago
    If, heaven forbid, Merb's best doesn't make it to Rails and it falls fallow, I have a hunch Merb takes root again. There are too many SCM clones and forks for it to disappear. Granted, time and energy is lost. Yet along the way, there'll be another Merb. Sometimes a spoon is a better fork.
KevBurnsJr 18y ago
lol @ Rails being called "the Establishment"
jm4 18y ago
How can the Ruby community splinter between two competing web frameworks? The entire Ruby-using population does not need to agree on a web framework. There can be smaller communities around various projects and frameworks within the Ruby community. In fact, I would think that it would be vital to Ruby's advancement and evolution. You mention that Rails being the dominant web framework is a strength and in the same sentence remark about how with other languages there are multiple competing frameworks. How, exactly, does this negatively impact developers? On the flip side, how does a merger between Rails and Merb positively impact developers? Developers who don't like Rails had an alternative in Merb and vice versa. How is the elimination of a choice a good thing? The way I see it, competition here is only a good thing. Why would anyone want Rails to be the only option-- or even the de facto standard-- when it's been shown to be exactly the wrong tool for the job in several high profile scenarios? Don't get me wrong-- I'm not bashing Rails. I'm just saying it's a good thing to have a few more tools in the toolbox. When your only tool is a hammer everything starts looking like nails.
- chaostheory 18y ago
  the problem of too much choice: http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/09/barry-schwartz-on-why-too-much-choice.php http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/09/barry-schwartz-on-why-too-m...
  - jm4 18y ago
    That's a completely valid problem, but at best it's debatable whether it applies to Ruby web frameworks. There's not exactly a plethora of mature web frameworks available. Rails and Merb seemed to be the most firmly established frameworks with a few others like Sinatra, Camping and Ramaze sprouting up. I think the too much choice problem applies much more when you're installing a Linux distribution and you have to choose from 40 different text editors or IM clients. Who has the time or the inclination to evaluate each one?
- carbon8 18y ago
  Well, Rack is really changing a lot already with Ruby frameworks. Sinatra is becoming more popular for highly specialized apps, and now you can embed Sinatra and Camping apps into other Rack apps, which includes Rails edge apps. Basically what's happening is that everything in Ruby is already becoming more modular, shifting toward organized APIs, so this helps move in a direction where you can basically build a customized framework like legos out of a bunch of gems and specialized apps without spending an inordinate amount of time trying to patch things to work together.
petercooper 18y ago
That's alright, we have Sinatra for innovation now: http://sinatra.rubyforge.org/ http://sinatra.rubyforge.org/

mdemare 18y ago

Impressive! How often do you hear about two open-source projects merging? Forking is much more common. I can't even recollect other instances of merging. Best of luck to the two teams with making it work!

jm4 18y ago
Compiz and Beryl. Beryl forked from Compiz and, if I remember correctly, relations were very sour between the two projects. Several months later they merged into Compiz Fusion.
tlrobinson 18y ago
KHTML and WebKit (though I'm not sure what the status of the "unforking" is): http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/07/23/the-unforking-of-kdes-khtml-and-webkit http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/07/23/the-unf...
dabeeeenster 18y ago
WebWork and Struts merged to become Struts 2...
- rapind 18y ago
  This is the best comparison. Struts was great when it came out and inspired a lot of 2nd gen frameworks like Webwork. Webwork was very clever and much improved over struts. However, struts was far more popular. Bringing the two together created a better product that was adopted by the mainstream java web developers. It was a great way to get the developers that were stuck on struts (for whatever reason, most likely to support existing code bases) into a better design. In about a year I could write the paragraph above substituting rails for struts, merb for webwork, and java for ruby.
davidw 18y ago
gcc forked at one point, and was subsequently merged back into the main branch. Still, though, it's not an everyday thing.
cosmo7 18y ago

qhoxie 18y ago

Hop in #merb and #rubyonrails for commentary from wycats and dhh. Lots of good discussion.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

nickb 18y ago

Well, this move has cemented Rails' future as the best web framework there is. What an awesome move! Congrats to Merb & Rails teams!

Locke 18y ago

Wow, I almost wish it were April Fools Day... For someone who loves Merb and had decided to leave Rails behind (as much as possible), I have very mixed feelings about this. If this means Rails will start to feel more like Merb, fantastic! Otherwise? I have a feeling it'll be a long while before I really know how to feel about this... It'll be interesting to see how well this merger actually works in practice. It seems like when large companies merge the results are often underwhelming. Can a merger of large open source projects work? Will the different cultures clash?

undertoad 18y ago
Ramaze
tlrobinson 18y ago
It's open source... fork it. I'm sure someone will.
- carbon8 18y ago
  Well, there are already over 400 Rails forks on github. ;-)
  - tlrobinson 18y ago
    Yes, but someone needs to step up and build a community for it to be a viable fork. There's a difference between someone forking Rails on GitHub so they can say "look at me, I maintain my own fork of Rails" (like 99% of those Rails "forks") and a legitimate open source project.
thomasmallen 18y ago
Merb will continue to be maintained and improved: "To be perfectly clear: we are not abandoning the Merb project. There are many production applications running on Merb that are relying on both timely bug fixes and a clear path to the future. If you’re using Merb today, continue using Merb. If you’re considering using Merb for a project because it works better for your needs, use Merb. You will not be left in the cold and we’re going to do everything to make sure that your applications don’t get stuck in the past." What this really means is that Merb will do what they should as an open-source project: Integrating with another. But for Merb's changes to Rails to be effective, they will have to continually improve Merb in isolation. Merb's going nowhere.

KevBurnsJr 18y ago

Sounds like they smelled some code duplication and committed to a cross-project refactoring. Exciting to see some smart people uniting over respect for a common problem.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

jarnold 18y ago

More links: http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/12/23/merb-gets-merged-into-rails-3 http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/12/23/merb-gets-merged-in... http://yehudakatz.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/ http://yehudakatz.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/ http://rubyonrails.org/merb http://rubyonrails.org/merb http://merbist.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/ http://merbist.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/ http://brainspl.at/articles/2008/12/23/merb-is-rails http://brainspl.at/articles/2008/12/23/merb-is-rails http://loriholden.com/archives/2008/12/23/16-merb-is-rails-30 http://loriholden.com/archives/2008/12/23/16-merb-is-rails-3... http://mornini.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/rails-2x-merb-1x-rails-30/ http://mornini.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/rails-2x-merb-1x-rai... http://splendificent.com/2008/12/the-merb-rails-merger-announcement-an-inside-opinion/ http://splendificent.com/2008/12/the-merb-rails-merger-annou...

bprater 18y ago

Wow, completely unexpected! Very exciting!

thomasmallen 18y ago

If you can't beat 'em...

mikhailov 18y ago

It's really great! http://www.railsgeek.com http://www.railsgeek.com

jhancock 18y ago

so much for "no code is faster than no code"

ruby_roo 18y ago

Can't wait for Zed to weigh in!

nailer 18y ago
Wait no longer. Zed has spoken: http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/index.html http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/index.html

cglee 18y ago

I love this. I was just torn about learning Merb and worried about how the Rails community was slowing down. This should inject some much needed energy as well as introduce some of Merb's awesome features into Rails. Great move.

tlrobinson 18y ago

My brain knows it's the middle of December, but I had to check to make sure it wasn't April 1st. This is exactly the type of headline we see every year on April 1st. Crazy that it's real.

tlrobinson 18y ago

I once heard someone suggest that the "Rails" architecture should just be a standard that could be implemented for any language. This seems to be a step in that direction. Sounds pretty good to me.

jackowayed 18y ago

So, I posted this on one of the threads for other blog posts about this, but that tread doesn't have much going on, and I want to see what people have to say about it: I'm a merbist and think this will be good for both the Merb and Rails communities. That said, I'm a little afraid it will shaft the other Ruby frameworks (Sinatra, Camping) and possibly straight ruby too. People might make interesting things only compatible with Rails. When Merb was a pretty big, active minority, it was more compelling to go out of one's way to make interesting libraries (ORMs, gems, etc.) easily compatible with anything ruby. Now, people might at the least write things specifically setup for use w/ rails in such a way that it's inconvenient to nonrails ruby, and at worst make Rails plugins for things that could be useful libraries for all of Ruby. Rails is gaining modularity, but I fear Ruby overall might lose it. Even after Rails and Merb merge, rails!=ruby.

mileszs 18y ago
There are plenty of people in the Ruby community who avoid Rails (whether their reasons are valid or not). I think you'll find plenty of Rubyists who wish to create things outside of Rails. Whether that means they will be throwing weight behind another framework such as Ramaze, or creating a new one, I can't say. I do believe that there are enough anti-mainstream hackers in the mix now that you don't have to worry about that "scene" dying. You're one of them, to an extent, and there's nothing wrong with that. Have at it.

mpk 18y ago

This is awesome. Merb has become the 'go to' framework for Rails developers like myself who are unsatisfied with several Rails design choices. However, the technical differences between the two are actually not that big. A merge of Merb and Rails concepts sounds like a good thing, all 'round. Three cheers for open-source development and civil relationships between developers.

juliend2 18y ago

this is huge. and it turns out that yesterday i was considering learning merb instead of rails. but for the moment i will learn rails. what is the best one to learn at the moment in order to be ready for rails 3?

mileszs 18y ago
Both. They're both Ruby. The learning curve for one over the other changes very little ultimately. In practice, however, Merb docs, tutorials, articles, howtos, et cetera, are lacking. That is reality. If you're starting from scratch w/ Ruby and her frameworks, you'll probably find Rails more newbie-friendly from a learning-materials standpoint.
- juliend2 18y ago
  Interesting, Thanks!

allertonm 18y ago

Do I detect the hand of Benchmark Capital here? Edit: I wrote the orginal comment in a hurry - but what I was getting at was that Engine Yard took quite a bit of cash from Benchmark. I somehow doubt that a move like this could have happened without their approval, and I have to wonder if they instigated it (and why...)

ksvs 18y ago
Hmmm. http://www.benchmark.com/news/sv/2008/10_21_2008.php http://www.benchmark.com/news/sv/2008/10_21_2008.php
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

mikhailov 18y ago

DHH confirmed to going with current logo. Are that guy delirious? http://url.davegrey.com?06609 http://url.davegrey.com?06609