Merb 1.0 Released So Here’s 44 Links and Resources To Get You Going

By Peter Cooper

Merb - a much heralded, highly flexible Ruby-based Web application framework - has reached version 1.0 after two years of development. Congratulations to Merb's creator, Ezra Zygmuntowicz, and to the large group of associated developers (such as Yehuda Katz and Matt Aimonetti) who've kept adding features and pushed Merb forward to be a significant alternative to Rails.

Ruby Inside has been some surveys for the past couple of months, and they still show that only 25% of Ruby Inside's visitors have ever developed a Merb application. With the stability that the 1.0 release offers (older versions of Merb had a reputation - fair or not - for a constantly shifting API), it's now a great time to give Merb a try. It's also a great time to get into writing tutorials and documentation!

Quick Start

Install Merb from Rubyforge: gem install merb

If you'd rather go from Merb's "edge" repository: gem install merb --source http://edge.merbivore.com

NOTE: Make sure that you are running RubyGems 1.3.0 or higher (run gem -v to check). If not, you need to upgrade (I found this page very useful for doing that.

Then follow a tutorial such as Life On The Edge with Merb, DataMapper & RSpec, Slapp: A Simple Chat Wall Merb Tutorial or Move Over Rails. Here Comes Merb.

Once you're ready to roll, bookmark this page for safe keeping and read on for our Merb resources! We've divided them up into sections to make it easier. Some will also be left in the comments by other readers!

Merb News and Community Sites

Merbunity - A community news site that focuses entirely on Merb. So far it's not been updated particularly often, but this is likely to change, and what they do have is great. Merbivore - The official Merb homepage. It provides links to all of the major things you'd need - docs, a wiki, downloads, and information on how to help the Merb project. Merb Overheard - A "planet" / aggregation blog for Merb related content. It also features some of the latest Merb related Twitter messages. A good looking site and well worth following if you want to stay up to date on Merb news. Planet Merb - A "planet" site for Merb-related blogs. Currently only has the blogs of several Merb developers and the official Merb blog, but it's bound to grow over time. The Merbist - A Ruby Inside-esque blog for the Merb world. It's run by Matt Aimonetti, a Merb core team member. Well worth subscribing to if you want a look at high level news related to Merb. Merb Google Group - A Google Groups hosted mailing list for Merb developers. It has over 800 members and is pretty busy! #merb on irc.freenode.net - Not a Web link, but an IRC channel. If you want to chat live about Merb but aren't familiar with IRC, learn more here. Ezra Zygmuntowicz's Brainspl.at - The personal blog of Merb creator, Ezra Zugmuntowicz. A lot of it is Merb related in some way or another. Katz Got Your Tongue? - The personal blog of Yehuda Katz, a key Merb developer and evangelist. A lot of Merb related posts.

Merb Tutorials and Documentation

Merb Books

Merb in Action - A general Merb book being written by Michael Ivey, Yehuda Katz, and Ezra Zygmuntowicz. It's not due out in print till May 2009, but so far three chapters are available in PDF form via an "Early Access Edition" right now. With the soldier on the cover, I guarantee this will end up being called the "MIA" or "Soldier" book :) The Merb Way - Following in the mold of the awesome The Ruby Way and The Rails Way books will come The Merb Way by Foy Savas. Publishing date is still uncertain, but likely to be next year. Given the history of Addison Wesley's * Way series, I expect this will be a gigantic reference book spilling out all of the guts of Merb for us to see and enjoy. Beginning Merb - Apress continue their Beginning * series with a Merb entry. Due out in February 2009, it'll be about 500 pages in length.

Merb Sample Apps

Feather - An "uber lightweight" Merb blogging engine / system. A blog is always a great app to take inspiration from :)

Panda: Open source video platform - An open source video transcoding and streaming platform built mostly around a Merb app. PmpknPi - A RESTful Blog API written in Merb. Slapp - A "chat wall" Web app. Merb-OpenID-Example - An example OpenID consumer application written in Merb using merb-auth's OpenID functionality. merb_mart - An open source e-commerce engine built on Merb. merb-dm-couchdb-sample - A quick sample application showing how to use CouchDB with a Merb / DataMapper app.

Merb Events

MerbCamp - MerbCamp was the first official gathering for the Merb community, but it's likely to happen again next year, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for it. Also be sure to watch the videos of the MerbCamp presentations. MerbDay - A Merb event taking place in Atlanta on December 6. Yehuda Katz will be speaking. Merb Outpost - A London based "outpost" of MerbCamp where 29 Merbists watched MerbCamp on a live webfeed. I'd be surprised if they didn't try to revive this for the next MerbCamp. If you're in London and want to be in contact with other local Merbists, however, get on there and check them out.

Merb Miscellaneous

Got any more Merb resources? Please leave a comment!