----- 
:type: article
:permalink: the-merb-way-review
:tags:
- ruby
- book
- review
:title: "Book Review: The Merb Way"
:toc: true
:date: 2009-10-02 19:41:36.788596 +02:00
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When I got this book from Addison Wesley to review, a few weeks ago, I remember looking at it and thinking: _"What? Is that it?"_. Somehow, after reading "The RailsWay":/articles/the-rails-way-review, I got stuck in my mind that _The Merb Way_ had to be almost equally voluminous. Instead, this latest book is about a third the previous one, which makes it roughly as long as the sum of just the chapters devoted to _ActiveRecord_ in Obie's acclaimed Rails bible.

Apparently it only takes 300 pages to describe a web framework nowadays! I couldn't help feeling a bit skeptical at first, before diving in. Even in the foreword Obie Fernandez presents the book – and the whole "Merb":http://www.merbivore.com framework – with initial skepticism: isn't Ruby on Rails enough? Why do we need yet another Ruby web framework? And above all, seeing that Merb is going to eventually be merged into Rails 3 soon enough, why on Earth do we need a book about Merb at all?

Needless to say, Foy Savas proved, with this book, that Merb cannot be dismissed just like that.