QCon 2009 - Merb: When Flexibility and Performance Matter

In this talk, Matt Aimonetti talks about the ideas and concepts behind Merb and the reasons why it's appealing: speed, modularity and more.

Video: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/aimonetti-merb

Transcript

1. & merb f l e x i b i l t y p e r f o r m a n c e
2. Me
3. Me Matt Aimonetti irc: m a t t e t t i http://github.com/mattetti
4. core team member & evangelist Matt
5. d o n ’ t w o r k at Engine Yard Matt http://engineyard.com
6. d o n ’ t w o r k at Engine Yard Matt http://engineyard.com
7. Matt C o n s u l t a n t based in San Diego, CA
8. http://ma-agile.com/training
9. Blogs: http://merbist.com http://railsontherun.com
12. C o n c l u s i o n ✓Cost ✓Adaptability ✓Scalablility merb meets the Enterprise needs
14. “It’s also worth mentioning that there shouldn’t be doubt in anybody’s mind at this point that Ruby itself is slow. It’s great that people are hard at work on faster implementations of the language, but right now, it’s tough.” Alex Payne, Twitter
15. I for one am scared of Ruby because ... it's known to be slow, so if you become The Next MySpace, you'll be buying 5 times as many boxes as the .NET guy down the hall. Joel Spolsky
16. Rails is for the vast majority of web applications Fast Enough... I just happen to care much more about free developer cycles and am willing to trade the former for the latter. David Heinemeier Hansson
17. Rails is slow
18. Ruby is slow
19. “The slowest programming language in the world”
20. benchmarks someone?
22. raw PHP: 331 rps
23. raw PHP: 331 rps cake PHP: 3.6 rps / 8 rps (eaccelerator)
24. raw PHP: 331 rps cake PHP: 3.6 rps / 8 rps (eaccelerator) code igniter: 21.5 rps / 98.2 rps (eaccelerator)
25. raw PHP: 331 rps cake PHP: 3.6 rps / 8 rps (eaccelerator) code igniter: 21.5 rps / 98.2 rps (eaccelerator) Rails: 88 rps
26. Rails is pretty close to the fastest PHP framework.
27. what about merb?
28. hello world benchmarks baseline results
29. apache serving static html: hello.html raw PHP: <?php echo "Hello world"; ?> merb router: match("/hello world")
30. Merb Router Static HTML raw php 1995 req/s 2898 req/s 3783 req/s http://merbist.com
31. $ ab test: ab -c 10 -n 5000 http://0.0.0.0/benchmark Merb 1.0 Django 1.0.1 Rails 2.2.1 Code Igniter 1.6.3 Symfony Cake PHP http://merbist.com
32. Ruby might be slow at fibonacci benchmarks who cares?
33. Ruby is fast at real life web benchmarks that’s what matters!
34. Ruby for the web is NOT slow
36. Enterprise
37. Enterprise Enterprise needs enterprise software
38. Enterprise “Enterprise software is software intended to solve an enterprise problem (rather than a departmental problem) and often written using an Enterprise Software Architecture.”
39. Enterprise enterprise problem != departmental problem
40. Enterprise an enterprise problem covers problems from many different departments
41. Enterprise many different departments means different needs/challenges
42. Enterprise “Enterprise software is software intended to solve an enterprise problem (rather than a departmental problem) and often written using an Enterprise Software Architecture.”
43. Enterprise Enterprise Software Architecture
44. Enterprise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_architecture
45. Enterprise organization-specific software architecture
46. Enterprise “Due to the cost of building what is often proprietary software, only large organizations attempt to build such software that models the entire business enterprise [...]”
47. Enterprise Elite
48. Enterprise what about the not so large companies?
49. Enterprise “As many business enterprises have similar departments and systems, enterprise software is often available as a suite of programs that have attached development tools to modify the common programs for the specific enterprise.”
50. Enterprise “complex development programming tools that require specialist capabilities”.
51. Enterprise Business Software Solutions Applications and Services
52. Enterprise ABAP NetWeaver SAP system ERP CRM SRM
53. Enterprise cost adaptability Concerns:
54. Enterprise Does it scale? Concerns:
55. Enterprise loads of req/s scalability easily extendable swap/extract parts
56. what about merb? because that’s why I’m here
57. cost open source free as in free speech
58. cost ruby Great language - widely adopted - enjoyable momentum
59. Ruby bet on MacRuby Rubinius
60. Ruby bet on MacRuby Rubinius
61. cost reusable merb slices - mountable mini applications
62. cost reusable merb slices Merb::Router.prepare do slice(:blog, :path => "blog") slice(:wiki, :path => "wiki") slice(:public_calendar, :path => "calendar") end
63. cost smooth transition access your Java code directly from Merb deploy your merb app like you deploy your java apps
64. cost model the entire business enterprise build common tools for common use choose
65. adaptability because needs differ and change
66. adaptability merb is truly modular ORM JS lib testing framework template engine http://flickr.com/photos/
67. $ merb-gen very_flat app-name 1 file Merb::Router.prepare do match('/').to(:controller => 'very-flat-app', :action =>'index') end class VeryFlatApp < Merb::Controller def index "Hi, I am 'very flat' Merb application. I have everything in one single file and well suited for dynamic stub pages." end end
68. $ merb-gen app app-name merb stack MVC architecture asset management caching view helpers mailer authentication exceptions handler
69. pick and choose adaptability add/remove dependencies
70. pick and choose adaptability extend plugins - slices - API
71. pick and choose adaptability extend replace build around merb core
72. scalability see benchmarks modularity small memory footprint
73. sum up
74. merb is fast
75. merb is flexible
76. merb is modular http://flickr.com/photos/ezzyponchi/283381271/ http://bonluxat.com
77. merb can be opinionated
78. merb — recycling
79. matz likes merb Merb has a bright future for the people who are not satisfied by the fixed ways in Rails. I think that Merb will give users more freedom in a Ruby-ish way of programming.
80. C o n c l u s i o n ✓Cost ✓Adaptability ✓Scalability merb meets the Enterprise needs
81. questions?