It was with Camping (http://camping.rubyforge.org/) that i first came across the term "web microframework" and its probable that all subsequent usage stems from this?

However I believe the emphasis of microframework that Camping was trying to put across was more on its code size which came in at or under 4K [1]. So perhaps frameworks which also accomplish a small code footprint, for eg. Squatting (http://search.cpan.org/dist/Squatting/), are best called microframeworks [2]

However happy to use microframework for Sinatra, Dancer, Flask, etc in lieu for something better? (nepenthe suggestion in the comments of "convenience framework" seems good to me - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2286376).

[1] https://github.com/camping/camping/blob/master/lib/camping.r...

[2] https://github.com/beppu/squatting/blob/master/lib/squatting...

I like microframework or lightweight framework. Both communicate that the framework isn't a full-stack, Django/Rails-type affair, and neither is particularly charged. Nobody's going to get into an architecture argument about scaling or ease-of-use using those terms.