Here is a quick sum up:

• improved the testing framework with full webrat integration.
• merb-action-args works with ParseTree 2.x and 3.x.
• improved merb-auth
• dependency “parse_tree”, :require_as => “ParseTree” { # do stuff after the gem is loaded }. You can also pass :immediate => true   (great to use gems from GitHub)
• improved Windows and JRuby support

1.0 final is expected to be released during Ruby Conf.

On a different note, the MerbCamp videos were released today. Check out the videos there.

A big thank to Patrick Crowley and Rob Kaufman for taking care of the encoding videos.

MerbCamp registration by Andy Delcambre

Day 1 went very fast.

The day started with a Keynote from Ezra Zygmuntowicz, author of Merb. Ezra covered the past and present of Merb and introduced Nanite: self assembling cluster of ruby processes.

(Carl Lerche) introduced the awesomeness brought to you by the new router.

Daniel Neighman introduced Merb’s slice system and Merb Authentication plugin.

Yehuda Kats had 2 talks today, one of how to test your app the Merb Way. Here is a quote which sumups the talk pretty well: “If you have to refactor your tests to refactor your code then your tests do not prove your code actually works.”  Yehuda also had a 2nd talk later on in the day where he talked about Javascript and why RJS sucks and should be replaced by proper JS (in prototype or jQuery or whatever).

Matt asking a question by Andy Delcambre

There were some other awesome talks like the couchDb talk, the Sequel talk, getting up and running with Merb and obviously awesome DM.

I have to say that it’s probably one of the best conference I have being part of. I’m certainly biased but I really enjoyed myself. Having a small group of motivated people makes a big difference. We had a great lunch all together, watch a 3xHD video stream during a break and headed to the beach for a sunset BBQ

Can’t wait for tomorrow but I need to prep my slides and work test Merb before we release 1.0RC tomorrow. By the way, we setup a new wiki during Merb Sprint and we will need your help to provide “osim” content before 1.0 final.

p.s: someone live blogged most of the talks.

Ezra during his Keynote

Merb 1.0 RC should be released tomorrow with a new option to get started with a Merb stack including Merb Core, Merb More, DataMapper Core with sqlite3 adapter and few plugins from DM more.

You will still be able to only use the modules you want, add/remove components, build a Sinatra like app etc.. The only difference is that if you wish to do so, we offer a packaged version of Merb that we guarantee working together. The exciting thing about the stack is that we included stuff most people will need such as builtin very flexible authentication, notification exceptions etc…

Watch the conf to learn more about the goodies in Merb 1.0

Go Merb!

UPDATE: FiveRuns MerbCamp sponsor, just released TuneUp for Merb! Awesome!