After playing around with Merb and data mapper over the holidays, I thought a post on some of the differences that I've found between rails and Merb might be helpful to someone thinking about trying Merb out.

If you haven't already installed Merb, check out Jon's awesome screencast, that should get you started.

Here's my list[^disclaimer]:

The Rails way	The Merb way
script/server	merb
script/console	merb -i
redirect_to blog_path(@blog)	redirect url(:blog, @blog)
respond_to	provides :xml, :js, :yaml
format	case content_type
render :xml => @post	render @post
render :file => 'public/404.html', :status => 404	raise NotFound
format.html	only_provides :html, :xml
logger	Merb.logger
before_filter	before
render :partial	partial
f.text_field :name	text_control :first_name, :label => 'First Name'
RAILS_ENV	MERB_ENV post v0.5.0 Merb.environment

[^disclaimer]: This list is by no means a complete list and I can't guaranty that they won't change as Merb is in active development, but feel free comment with anything I have missed.