What the hell is this "merb" thing?

[Majglow]

I don't understand. Can anybody explain this to me?

http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/1...d-into-rails-3

[Mittineague]

It means that the Merb framework will be merged into the Rails framework as of Rails version 3 for the reasons explained in the article you linked to.

[Megapixelicious]

Merb is kinda of a spin off of RoR. It was simpler and had better performance, plus a few great idea. I hope RoR gets some performance boost out of this and the plugin architecture so we could create RoR apps with a smaller memory foot print.

All in All, this is great news!

[lo0ol]

This is really pretty monumental, I think. Ruby's going to have a pretty ridiculous 2009, between this, and the further work being done on the various flavors of Ruby VMs out there.

With the best ideas of Merb being incorporated into Rails 3, Rails is going to be faster, more extensible, have a more solid public API to change core functionality, and (eventually) be more stable. It's going to take a substantial amount of work and planning, but personally I welcome the change.