Tom and I are giving our JRuby on Rails talk twice at JavaOne next week, and while wrestling with ScheduleBuilder I discovered something surprising: the thursday session is already FULL! Perhaps I underestimated how many people would be interested in seeing us prattle on about the future of Java web...

Ok folks, this is the beginning. I'm going to try, in the midst of JavaOne Day Zero chaos, to run the first big *open* JVM dynamic languages get-together.
It will be part of RedMonk's Unconference running parallel to CommunityOne on Monday, May 7th. It is a *FREE* event. Yes, I...

The latest Ruby Blogging Contest hits close to home: What changes would make Ruby into a better language without making it into something that isn't Ruby?
As you might guess, I've got some pretty strong thoughts here. I'm not a heavy Rails user, and I'm not as heavy a Ruby...

Since it looks like Antonio Cangiano is going to delay the next running of the bulls until Ubuntu 7.04 is released, I figured the next JRuby 1.0 update could be about performance.
Performance is such a tricky area for Ruby. Folks outside the Ruby community happily malign its performance, fueled...

Remember way back when the IRB applet was first thrust upon the world, and I promised that you truly could now use Ruby in the browser? At the time, it was still a little cumbersome, and generally you could only use Ruby by passing it directly into the applet.
Well...

Well friends, the countdown has begun. Within the next several weeks, we're looking at getting a 1.0 release out in either beta or RC form. Of course most of you OSS folks know how arbitrary release numbers are...the day after we branch 1.0 we're going to start committing to 1.1,...

I haven't blogged a solid JRuby update recently...and this one isn't going to be as solid as I'd like, but it should let you all know that the wheels are still moving and the train is picking up speed. It's astounding how much progress is being made.
ActiveRecord Now Fully...

# scripting.rb
include Scriptable...

I've spent some time this weekend looking over the Grails codebase. After a truly gigantic checkout (Grails bundles production JARs for all the libraries it integrates) and after swimming through a substantial, single-project sea of source files, I think I'm starting to follow it (though a tour by someone familiar...

See, here's the deal. I'm not a very advanced IDE user. I used Eclipse for years and JDE before that, and I wouldn't ever have considered myself a "pro" with either. I learned what I needed to get the job done and not a whole lot else. Beyond that I...

Things have been moving quickly in JRuby-land, and we've just kicked out a major release in JRuby 0.9.8. Among the big features:
Ruby classes can extend concrete/abstract Java classes and override methodsNew Java primitive array syntaxReimplementation of String, Numeric classes, and Array to be more correct and performantSignificant bottlenecks have...

After my adventures in Hyderabad, the next stop on the tour took me to the heart of India's IT industry, where I would present my TechDays talk again for Sun Microsystems' Indian Engineering Center. But I scheduled in a little free time as well, to do some exploring.
I arrived...

I have many pictures to share, but they will have to wait for an updated post. Allow your imagination to escort you for now.
So! I had been trapped in the "green zone" at the Novotel Hyderabad for two solid days, and I think I just finally had enough of...

I just completed my talk at Tech Days Hyderabad, and I think it was resounding success. If I heard right, the total head count for my "JRuby Essentials" talk was over 1200 people, by far the largest crowd I've presented for. There was a hoard of questioners immediately after the...

Success! It is now 3:00AM in Hyderabad India, and I have checked into the Novotel in HiTec City. The flight was uneventful; I got my demos basically working and then slept the majority of the time. The immigration and customs at the airport were perhaps the least threatening of any...

I'm now relaxing at Schiphol Airport, where I've just plunked down my 10 euros for internet access. After a light breakfast, my current task is now to ensure demos are ready and working for TechDays. I discovered a bit ago that the Rails Integration project uses maven to build, and...

Yes, you read that right! I'm announcing my intent to circumnavigate the globe in only NINE DAYS spreading JRuby and joy at every stop. The Earth shall be wrapped in JRuby goodness!
To celebrate this monumental occasion, I'm inviting all developers with an interest in Ruby or Java to join...

The Phoenix Is Rising!
After being considered dead for many years, Jython is back in business with the beta 1 release of Jython 2.2. It's been teetering on the edge of 2.2 compatibility for a long time, but over the past several months the core team and several contributors have...

Things are moving along well...so well I've found time to reimplement String with byte[], work on closures in the compiler, and, well those are posts for another day. Today I update you on the progress of supporting Rails in JRuby.
Rails is quite an interesting beast. I've learned more about...

Last week Tim Bray and I were at Menlo Park to meet with the Open Source Software Society Shimane, a delegation of developers, managers, and company heads from the Shimane prefecture of Japan. They were visiting Sun to talk with us about opportunities for cooperation, Sun hardware and software, and...