geekmade

Wow, I said to myself, is this really happening? Surely it must be a joke. No, merb is merging with Rails! I had to pinch myself. After all the recent bitchiness this was the last thing I was expecting.

I am a big fan of both frameworks, I use Rails at work and merb at home in my side projects. If I had to choose I would pick merb, I like the simpler style of coding, the smaller “lego block” pieces of functionality and the agnostic approach to ORM’s, Javascript libraries and testing frameworks.
What I am trying to say is that this post is written by a ruby developer who favours merb but not so much that I have stopped using Rails.

I did and still do have reservations about the merge but here is why I think you should stop worrying and start loving Rails 3.

Duplication of effort

As far as I can gather one of the biggest reasons for this merger happening is that DHH wants a more modular Rails with a stable public API, which is basically what merb has now. As both camps have the same views and ideals why duplicate effort in two places. Work together to create a great framework that the whole community will enjoy and benefit from. Effort can be combined to achieve the same goal and the addition of more core developers makes the project stronger.

Rails is broken for some people

Merb was born out of frustrations with Rails, these frustrations were addressed and a very good framework was produced. Merb has proved the community required something else from Rails that they were not getting previously.
DHH has reacted to this. Some say he has too many opinions and has a big ego, I say he realises that Rails needs to change and its missing features are present in merb. He has taken steps to stop Rails from stagnating by taking a very bold and brave decision to merge with merb, this could be a disaster. I think DHH is genuinely interested in delivering a Rails that the community wants and not a Rails just for 37 signals, this bodes well for the future. Having a lead developer that makes big decisions means the framework will be able to stay agile and evolve when it needs to.

Merbists need not worry

I must admit my first thought when I heard the news was that I would lose all the things I love about merb when it gets merged into a larger framework like rails.
I had some stuff to say about this but I think Matt sums up merbists concerns and answers them with more authority than I could.

Rails developers need not worry

Rails developers have no need to worry. Rails will get performance gains, a nice public API and when developers need to stray from the golden path they will not get bitten in the arse. It will improve an already great framework and they will finally get engines that work properly.

Personality clashes

Will the personalities gel? Everyone knows about DHH’s opinions and Yehuda certainly had strong ideas on the direction of merb.
There is a danger that when the core developers get down to the nitty gritty that problems may arise. I suspect that the new core team members have a great deal of respect for each other, hence why this merger is actually going ahead.

In a recent post DHH has admitted that actually both camps had the same views.

I think what really brought this change around was the realisation that we largely share the same sensibilities about code. That we’re all fundamentally Rubyists with very similar views about the big picture. That the rift in many ways was a false one. Founded on lack of communication and a mistaken notion that because we care about working on different things, we must somehow be in opposition.

Strong personalities are needed to drive things forward, the problem comes when these personalities are unreasonable, stubborn or just don’t like each other. I think only time will tell whether there will be any clashes.
I hope not.

Mono culture bad for competition?

Some people argue that a lack of competition could lead to stagnation and a lack of innovation within the community. I agree, there is a danger that without another framework pushing back against Rails it could plateau.
I hope that by bringing in new developers from merb is what Rails needs to stimulate more innovation. Rails has always been very good at that but maybe it was too focused on the Rails community and took its eye off the Ruby community as a whole.

Rails 3 == stronger community

I think the conclusion I am trying to make is that this decision is all about community. Part of the community was unhappy with Rails and turned to merb. A community that seemed to be at odds has come together to build a better web framework, that shows a high level of maturity. So you should love Rails 3 because its a product of the Ruby community uniting and hopefully getting stronger.

Personally I am proud to be a part of such a community and will continue to use Rails and merb until the two merge.