Ruby Interpreter Usage

Ruby
1

I need to have an overview about the current and future state of Ruby interpreters, so I have some questions:

  • What is the most used interpreter currently? I think its YARV since it's the official interpreter since Ruby 1.9.x, but I'm not sure.
  • What is the future of MRI? Does the development on MRI continue or is MRI "dead"?
  • What about Rubinius? Is it possible that it will supersede YARV in future Ruby releases?
  • Or are there any other Ruby interpreters that could supersede YARV?
2

I’ve just noticed that my question looks very odd here. I think my
mailing client sends additional html crap along with the text. So here
again my question:

I need to have an overview about the current and future state of Ruby
interpreters, so I have some questions:

What is the most used interpreter currently? I think its YARV since it’s
the official interpreter since Ruby 1.9.x, but I’m not sure.
What is the future of MRI? Does the development on MRI continue or is
MRI “dead”?
What about Rubinius? Is it possible that it will supersede YARV in
future Ruby releases?
Or are there any other Ruby interpreters that could supersede YARV?

3

What is the most used interpreter currently? I think its YARV since it’s
the official interpreter since Ruby 1.9.x, but I’m not sure.
What is the future of MRI? Does the development on MRI continue or is
MRI “dead”?

Yarv and MRI are the same as of 1.9+. Not dead in the slightest.

What about Rubinius? Is it possible that it will supersede YARV in
future Ruby releases?

No

Or are there any other Ruby interpreters that could supersede YARV?

Not at the moment. All other interpreters have their own niche
(Java/windows/embedded) but one could come along at some point and be
accepted as the main impl… Not anytime soon tho.

4

Thanks for the answer.

What about Rubinius? Is it possible that it will supersede YARV in
future Ruby releases?

No

I’m curious: Why not? Is this just your personal opinion?

5

On 23 December 2013 20:45, Ryan D. [email protected] wrote:

On Dec 22, 2013, at 22:40, Martin E. [email protected] wrote:

Or are there any other Ruby interpreters that could supersede YARV?

Not at the moment. All other interpreters have their own niche
(Java/windows/embedded) but one could come along at some point and be
accepted as the main impl… Not anytime soon tho.

JRuby is actually very strong, with a very active development community,
and lots of supporters and use in the wild. It’s not 100% compatible
with
Ruby 2.0/2.1 yet, but it’s pretty close, and its biggest selling points
are
its speed (much faster than MRI) and the fact that it runs in the JVM
(i.e.
“anywhere”). Not exactly a niche interpreter.

6

Actually cruby: MRI/Yarv benches faster

proper:
http://miguelcamba.com/blog/2013/10/05/benchmarking-the-ruby-2-dot-1-and-rubinius-2-dot-0/

Having the JVM as a dependency may be a convenience for those stuck in
the
(java-lang?) eco-system but at the end of the day it isn’t really
“anywhere” anymore than where it is installed, which is not on my
servers,
which makes it a niche as much as anything else.

7

On Dec 23, 2013, at 1:43, Martin E. [email protected] wrote:

Thanks for the answer.

What about Rubinius? Is it possible that it will supersede YARV in
future Ruby releases?

No

I’m curious: Why not? Is this just your personal opinion?

I’ve got commit bit on MRI/yarv and I used to work professionally on
rubinius. I’d rather not go into detail in public as to why it won’t
happen. Just trust me that it won’t.

8

Ryan D. wrote in post #1131766:

I’ve got commit bit on MRI/yarv and I used to work professionally on
rubinius. I’d rather not go into detail in public as to why it won’t
happen. Just trust me that it won’t.

I trust you.

9

Stu wrote in post #1131492:

Actually cruby: MRI/Yarv benches faster

Of course it does. In some cases. On short-lived, artificial
benchmarks. Except for those cases where JRuby does. Or the (many)
times that RBX beats them both. Did you actually look at the results of
the tables, or read through the comments at the bottom of the linked
article?

Allow me the gratuity of expanding my earlier statement, for those who
can’t read between lines:

… and its biggest selling points are its speed (much faster than MRI
in various real-world applications, especially long-lived rails
applications)…

Having the JVM as a dependency may be a convenience for those stuck in
the (java-lang?) eco-system but at the end of the day it isn’t really
“anywhere” anymore than where it is installed, which is not on my
servers,

Hence the quotes around “anywhere;” I was riffing on the “write once,
run everywhere” slogan.

which makes it a niche as much as anything else.

As much as everything else. Nothing runs everywhere. That’s just
being silly.

Oh man, you mean I have to install a UNIX- or Windows-like operating
system to run your stupid programming language? Well screw you, I’ll
stick with punch cards!

And dependencies are dependencies, whether they’re as “heavy” as the JVM
or “light” as a single dynamically-linked .so; if you don’t want to
install the JVM, don’t run JRuby; if you don’t want to install
foobar.so, don’t run fooruby. A notable differentiator in this case is
that odds are there’s already a working JVM that could be installed in
most places.