# Preface

Way back when, there was no Merb stack, no locked API,
no organized documentation, and the code base was changing often. 
So, [Matthew Ford][] decided to work on an [Open Source][] book
with a simple goal:
help courageous Rubyists who wanted to live on the edge
and had decided to try Merb, [DataMapper][], and [RSpec][]. 

Since then, Merb matured a lot, getting up and running became way easier
and Merb decided to offer an **opinionated** version of the stack
using Merb, DataMapper, and RSpec! 

As an early Merb developer myself,
I really enjoyed having access to Matt's book
and I even contributed to the early version of the book. 
Since then, I joined the Merb team;
with the rest of them, I focused on the big 1.0 release. 
We did this (successfully!)  in two steps:
the first Release Candidate during [MerbCamp 2008][]
and the 1.0 final during [RubyConf 2008][]. 

Having a wonderful framework is great,
but as Jason Seifer from [RailsEnvy.com][] said to me after 1.0 was released:

> Merb has some awesome code documentation, the code is so easy to read,
> but the user documentation is still lacking. 

Jason was right; our user documentation was not that great. 
Of course, we have the [Merb wiki][] and a bunch of books available out there,
but I have to say that looking at other frameworks such as [Django][],
the entire core team knew we had to do something. 

Ford's efforts were noticed early on
and he was offered a deal to write [Beginning Merb][] for [Apress][]. 
As you can imagine,
it became a bit hard for Matt to write a book for a publisher,
have a full time job, contribute to various Open Source projects,
keep up with Merb,
and finally make sure the open source book he started a while back
would stay up to date. 
On top of that, many things changed pre-1.0
and a good part of the existing content needed a full rewrite. 

That's why the Merb team decided it was time to get involved
and to get the community focused on a centralized, user-oriented book. 

I am really glad that the Merb team decided
to take responsibility for this book
and that we will make sure it stays well organized, up to date, and relevant. 
However, this book, very much like Merb,
won't grow and evolve much without the community's help. 
So, please, send us corrections, new examples, and new chapters,
so this book can help the community as a whole. 

[Matt Aimonetti][], Merb Core team member


<!--  Links -->
[Apress]:           http://www.apress.com/
[Beginning Merb]:   http://www.apress.com/book/view/9781430218234
[DataMapper]:       http://datamapper.org/doku.php
[Django]:           http://www.djangobook.com/
[Matt Aimonetti]:   http://merbist.com
[Matthew Ford]:     http://github.com/deimos1986
[MerbCamp 2008]:    http://merbcamp.com
[Open Source]:      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source
[RailsEnvy.com]:    http://railsenvy.com
[RSpec]:            http://rspec.info
[RubyConf 2008]:    http://rubyconf.org
[Merb wiki]:        http://wiki.merbivore.com



