We Welcome Our New Merby Overlords

Noel Rappin, Friday, January 2, 2009 @ 3:54 pm

Here's a slightly edited version of my Twitter feed for December 23rd, 2008:

1:59 PM: Wow! Rails 3 = Merb 2.

2:50 PM: Merb is fun to say. Merb Merb Merb Merb Merb. We welcome our new Merby overlords.

2:50 PM: Also twitter added actual people search, so it's a weird day all around.

2:57 PM: Co-worker, over IM: "I feel like the communists and capitalists just joined forces."

2:58 PM: Let's see... the Rails/Merb backlash should start in about an hour. The backlash to the backlash is scheduled for Tuesday.

2:57 PM: Message from @faithfulgeek: @noelrap it's not like MS just open sourced Windows!

2:59 PM: @faithfulgeek Only, one hopes, with a lot fewer bugs

3:04 PM: @greggpollack So when do we get the I'm RoR/I'm Merb video that ends with the two of them... well, I guess I'd leave the ending up to you

3:25 PM: Am I in a silly mood because I've been saying "Merb Merb" for the last half hour, or am I saying "Merb Merb" because I'm in a silly mood?

What have we learned from this? A few things:

• The combination of the impending holiday weekend and the weirdness of the news made me kind of giddy.
• All those people jabbering about how Twitter is the water cooler for the 21st century may be on to something. (I was working at home that day.)
• The Merb/Rails merger is a seriously surprising and weird piece of news.

However, with about ten days or so worth of reflection, I actually have some thoughts on the matter. You'll note that I didn't say coherent thoughts, instead, I'll be presenting another episode of Bullet Point Theater.

• It's hard to overstate how surprising this was. I'm not the only one who was checking the timestamp on DHH's post for an April 1st date.
• On top of which, the plan seems crazy ambitious. It's as if 1960s GM merged with Volkswagen and agreed to put out a prototype combining both design sensibilities in six months.
• But, as a consumer (nay, a connoisseur) of fine Ruby web framework products, it seems like I'm better served by having the two biggest producers combining toward a common goal than I am by having them hurl snark at each other over the Internet.
• Because the upside here is very up. A framework with all the default support of Rails, plus the ability to easily plug out and plug in different support tools. Yes, that does sound nice.
• My biggest concern right now is sort of metaphysical. Rails, to date, has a very strong point of view, which is part of what makes working with it so pleasurable (at least for me). What does that feel like when you can change the core components around? Not sure yet.
• I mean, if I were a hardcore Merb developer who had moved there because of a strong distaste for Rails feel, I'd be somewhere between bewildered and outraged right now. I'm not, so I'm somewhere between bewildered and hopeful.
• The thing that makes me feel best about the whole thing so far has been Yehuda Katz' initial set of commits into Edge Rails and his own forked branch. They seem like the kind of widespread, but sensible, refactorings that you can only do when you are tearing everything apart anyway.
• This puts Edge Rails development back into hyperdrive. That sound you hear is my old book decaying.
• I'm not worried about this being the end of competition in the framework space. I'm sure we'll all find something new to argue about soon enough.

So there. I'm cautiously optimistic about this, I think it speaks well of everybody involved that they would choose this path, and I can't wait to see what comes of it.

Related posts:

1. edge case city: requirements and testing dates for HR business logic
2. Announcing Rails Prescriptions
3. Rails Development on Windows: Native or Virtualize
4. The Rails Edge: Notes
5. The Incredible Rising Version Number

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