Lori Holden: Hi Matt, my name is Lori Holden. I originally became interested in software development when I was 10. Since then, I have been a professional developer for over 10 years now and currently work as a Senior Software Engineer for AT&T Interactive.

Lori Holden: Years ago I had been hearing talk about an ‘upcoming’ new language called Ruby. At the time it didn’t have many people in the US working with it, but I really loved how similar to Smalltalk it was.

My core background experience is centered around Ruby, Java, C++, PHP, and Javascript. Outside of that, I consider myself a language geek… and have quite a bit of experience in Python, Smalltalk, OCaml, IO Language, and Perl, along with several others.

Lori Holden: I was one of the original Rails developers. Since then, I have used Rails off and on… but have found myself growing more and more unsatisfied with it. On top of that, I have also found myself growing out of touch with the core developers over the last couple years, which I am sure doesn’t help things.
Merb is fresh. I find it carries a lot less baggage with it than Rails. Even better, the project is still small and I seem to get along quite well with the the other developers on the project.

Lori Holden: Primarily, I just like the developers. Everyone seems to be really passionate about Merb and are willing to push it in some really cool directions. At the same time, Merb still manages to remain slim and with very little bloat.
I really enjoy helping projects push through to release and I was glad to be a part of that for Merb.
Sequel is a really wonderful tool, and I was finding that just not that many people in the Merb community were using it. I had a lot of experience with getting Merb and Sequel to work with each other, and figured I should share my experience with everyone else.

Lori Holden: This is a really odd one, but my favorite aspect of Merb is that I know it very well inside and out. If I need to browse the source for some feature, I already know where to go and what to look at. I attribute this to how slim the merb-core has remained. I think it is quite easy to work with.

Lori Holden: Merb is still immature in some areas. Gem management is one thing that I am finding to be a bit lacking. The support for Sequel could use a bit more improvement… but I suppose that’s something I should work on. And finally, something that I hope Merb always works on: Keep it Small. Keep it Simple. Keep it Core. Bloat should be a plugin away, not an upgrade.

Lori Holden: Thank you Matt. I hope you and your wife have a great winter solstice.