Chapter 1. Getting Started
Introduction
JRuby is an open source implementation of the Ruby programming language for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It allows Ruby applications to be run within a Java Virtual Machine and interface with libraries written in either Java or Ruby. Although the JRuby project was initiated in 2001, interest in JRuby has grown significantly over the last few years, reflecting an overall growth in interest in Ruby sparked by the success of the Ruby on Rails framework. Sun has contributed to JRuby’s success by employing members of the core development team and providing support for JRuby in the NetBeans development environment, among other efforts. The website for the JRuby project is currently http://www.jruby.org.
Ruby
Ruby is a dynamic object-oriented programming language created by Yukihiro Matsumoto, known by the nickname Matz, in the mid-1990s. Ruby follows a style of versioning similar to the Linux kernel, where an even minor version number indicates a stable release and an odd minor version number indicates a development release. As a result, there are two current versions of Ruby: 1.8.6, released in March 2007, is the current stable release, and 1.9.0, released in December 2007, is the current development release. The standard Ruby interpreter[1] is written in C. There are several alternate implementations of the interpreter, including JRuby, IronRuby (for Microsoft’s .NET framework), and Rubinius. Ruby does not have a formal language specification; ...