Sun Updates JRuby

Sun Microsystems and the JRuby community have updated JRuby, a Java implementation of the Ruby interpreter, with the release of JRuby 1.1.6.

Thomas Enebo, a software developer at Sun Microsystems and one of the core developers of JRuby, said JRuby 1.1.6 is the sixth point release of JRuby 1.1.  

The fixes in this latest release are primarily compatibility problems and performance enhancements, Enebo said.  "Our goal is to put out point releases more frequently for the next several months—about three to four weeks a release," he said.  "We want a more rapid release cycle to better address issues brought up by users of JRuby.”

Enebo said highlights of the new release include additional Ruby 1.9 support; a full 1.9 parser; support for most core Ruby 1.9 methods, classes and libraries; faster Array.sort; the ability to run gems out of jar files without having to unpack them; the ability to store gem repositories in jars and load them via the classpath; improved JavaEmbedUtils for embedders; and 74 bugs fixed since JRuby 1.1.5.