I would love JRuby to be a solid Ruby implementation that can leverage the investment in Java/JVM debugging/performance/profiling tools. But here's an example where it would be very useful: I am writing a monitoring application that exposes information about a Java based application, Sonic MQ JMS broker, and the underlying OS status. Ruby makes trivial work of parsing sar output, or scraping / proc files. The Sonic management API however is an untyped JMX style API. I first tried to use a Java/Sonic CLI program and have my Ruby code run it with popen3 etc but had challenges making this stable. I then tried the Java Ruby Bridge which was great but had unexplained failures and my Ruby isn't strong enough to diagnose. I then used Ruby to drive a Java servlet wrapper on the JMS api, and then ended up writing a hard-coded specific Java app that logs the subset of attributes I am interested in to a file and I have a decoupled Ruby script that reads this. That is four hacks that each sucked in different ways. Using Ruby to in-process call the Java code is the least sucky approach by far. Is JRuby ready to have a threaded Ruby app use threaded Java code effectively? Peter On Nov 11, 2006, at 6:12 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: > David Vallner wrote: >> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: >> >>> Well ... I know how *I* feel about it: >>> >>> http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/2006/11/nitty-gritty-of- >>> ruby_11.html >>> >>> >> >> Impose JRuby on the world? I have my doubts Sun would even try - the >> time of Java hype marketing is past. > Well, the original poster wanted jRuby to be the one true way. I > was simply saying that wasn't possible; even Sun couldn't do it. I > too doubt if they would try. But Sun is a big enough company to try > things that might not necessarily work. > > The time of Java hype marketing is past? Maybe, but the language > seems to be an 800-pound gorilla in some peoples' minds. I can't > imagine Sun *not* doing everything they can to insure that jRuby > succeeds and wins business for Sun. > >> And I don't think JRuby will be as >> earthshaking to both the Ruby and Java worlds as some people make >> it out >> to be. By adopting JRuby as the implementation language for the Java >> platform, you are also partially dropping the advantages that >> keeping to >> Java has (existing infrastructure, experience, tool support). In the >> end, it might be a useful tool on both sides, but I don't see >> paranoid >> managers adopting Ruby en masse just because it has a J prepended >> to it >> - not all of them are that gullible. >> > Again, *I* don't support dropping other implementations of Ruby. If > nothing else, Microsoft will make at least one release of at least > one Ruby implementation. And I'm sure Matz and Koichi will continue > leading the community path. > > What I'm *not* sure about is whether Rubinius will flourish. > Cardinal seems pretty much dead, but I think there's a lot of > energy behind Rubinius. >> That the JVM become the primary runtime for Ruby is somehow >> laughable. >> So far, it hasn't become the primary runtime for any major >> programming >> language that isn't Java, evidence would suggest that this remains >> the >> case. It would be foolish for performance reasons if nothing else, a >> dedicated optimised VM will do better when treated with Ruby >> idiosyncratisms like pervasive use of closures. >> > But we're talking about two different things here -- a community > and commercial enterprises. The community can afford to strive for > perfection. Commercial enterprises can not. They must *satisfice*, > not optimize! > >> The signal-to-noise ratio of blog topics that concern both Java >> and Ruby >> has been abysmal unless it was about JRuby in specific, I hate to see >> random opinionated rants and wishful thinking cloud that topic too. >> > Still, you have to acknowledge that jRuby is now a commercial > project funded by a major hardware and software vendor. That's > going to draw opinions and rants and wishful thinking and love and > hate and arguments and FUD. I'm surprised someone from Microsoft > hasn't attacked it publicly yet. > > jRuby is an investment. Only time will tell whether that investment > will pay off and what the payoffs will be. I don't know enough > about the Java runtime (or the CLR or Parrot, for that matter) to > predict success or failure. I'm personally much more interested in > the open source community efforts. There are many more > opportunities for me to create signal there than there are in two > corporations, neither of which pays me a dime. :) > > -- > M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P) > http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/ > > If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have > given rabbits fire. > >