JRuby

The Ruby programming language was released to the public in 1995 and gained widespread adoption in 2006. A multipurpose language that focuses on simplicity and productivity, it combines the best features of many compiled and interpreted languages, such as easy development of large programs, rapid prototyping, almost-real-time development, and compact code. Ruby is a reflective, dynamic, and interpreted object-oriented scripting language, and JRuby is a Java programming language implementation of the Ruby language syntax, core libraries, and standard libraries.

Recently, JRuby has been gaining more and more attention in the Java and Ruby communities. Java is a powerful platform and there are millions of lines of Java code being written each month, that the world will have to live with for a long time from now. By leveraging Java the platform with the power of the Ruby programming language, programmers get the best from both worlds. You better not ignore JRuby any more!

Charles Nutter and Thomas Enebo, better known as “The JRuby Guys”, are joining Sun this month.

Dynamically-typed languages like Ruby are only beginning to be accepted in the software mainstream, and many of the best practices and tools remain to be invented. Sun would like to ensure that the Ruby programming language, in its JRuby form, is available to the community of Java developers. Also, there is a possibility that the Java platform may prove to be an attractive deployment option for existing Ruby applications in certain scenarios.