# JRuby on OpenVMS works! (slow, though)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-on-openvms-works-slow-though/133698>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 2, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-on-openvms-works-slow-though/133698 "2008-04-02T19:10:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/synergism)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-on-openvms-works-slow-though/133698/1 "2008-04-02T19:10:33Z")

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I was pleasantly surprised that JRuby works on OpenVMS. Here’s a  
discussion I kicked off on the HP ITRC forums about performance  
concerns:

[http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1218567](http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1218567)

Ben

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**Author:** ![synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/synergism)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 12:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-on-openvms-works-slow-though/133698/2 "2008-04-03T00:05:22Z")

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Hi Ben

I’ve been messing with JRuby on VMS for a little while already.

I was suprised to see that jirb even runs inspite of the massive  
stacktrace  
that occurs because it thinks it’s running on a UnixTerminal.

Here’s hoping that jruby will be a viable option for OpenVMS in the near  
future.

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**Author:** ![synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/synergism)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 11:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-on-openvms-works-slow-though/133698/3 "2008-04-03T11:59:29Z")

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Dan wrote:

> Hi Ben
> 
> I’ve been messing with JRuby on VMS for a little while already.
> 
> I was suprised to see that jirb even runs inspite of the massive stacktrace  
> that occurs because it thinks it’s running on a UnixTerminal.
> 
> Here’s hoping that jruby will be a viable option for OpenVMS in the near  
> future.

Please file a bug for that…we definitely want all platforms where we  
run to run well, so this sounds like a good one to fix 🙂

- Charlie

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/synergism)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 5:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-on-openvms-works-slow-though/133698/4 "2008-04-03T05:29:14Z")

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synergism wrote:

> I was pleasantly surprised that JRuby works on OpenVMS. Here’s a  
> discussion I kicked off on the HP ITRC forums about performance  
> concerns:
> 
> [http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1218567](http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1218567)
> 
> Ben

Yes, but does _OpenVMS_ work? 😉

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@synergism](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/synergism)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 12:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-on-openvms-works-slow-though/133698/5 "2008-04-03T12:04:14Z")

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synergism wrote:

> I was pleasantly surprised that JRuby works on OpenVMS. Here’s a  
> discussion I kicked off on the HP ITRC forums about performance  
> concerns:
> 
> [http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1218567](http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1218567)

I scanned through the discussion, and do have a few suggestions:

- Try various JVM flags to adjust performance…I have no idea what  
they’d be under VMS.
- Try JRuby flags, available by running jruby --properties. Several in  
there, especially “reflection” might improve performance or startup  
time.
- If you have access to the OpenVMS JVM folks, they might be able to  
point out things we’re doing in JRuby that interfere with their Java  
optimizations. For example, the IBM J9 guys warned us against re-using  
the same block of code for exception handled and non-exception-handled  
code paths, which breaks certain optimizations they do.

Performance is very important to us, so please file bugs for anything  
concrete you’re able to find.

[http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/JRUBY](http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/JRUBY)

- Charlie