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Mac and Ruby Roundup: MacRuby AOT, DMGs with ChocTop
MacRuby is steadily moving forward, with a usable Ahead of Time (AOT) compiler coming closer on the experimental branch, which should make Ruby a first class language for Cocoa applications. Also: a look at Dr Nic's ChocTop utility for creating MacOS DMG files.
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MacRuby Drops GIL, Gains Concurrent Threads
MacRuby joins the ranks of JRuby and IronRuby and moved away from Ruby 1.9's Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) in the experimental branch.
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Ruby 1.9.2 Plans Announced
The plan for the Ruby 1.9.2 release is available now, including the timeline and some features that might be added, such as shipping SQLite with Ruby.
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Ruby VM Roundup: IronRuby 1.0 Coming Up, RubySpec, JRuby 1.3.1
IronRuby's alive and kicking - and will go 1.0 in July. We look at some resources to get up to speed with IronRuby's status. Also: JRuby 1.3.1 is an important bug fix update for JRuby users, MacRuby continues to improve and MagLev now comes with a native parser.
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JRuby Roundup: JRuby 1.3 Released, ruby2java, JSR 292 Progress
JRuby 1.3 is now available, bringing performance improvements and compatibility with Google AppEngine. Work on other improvements is continuing and a first version of the ruby2java compiler is now available. Also: InvokeDynamic support is making it's way into the builds for the next Java version.
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Squeak Smalltalk and Seaside come to the iPhone
Squeak Smalltalk is the latest language to be supported on the iPhone platform. We talked to John M McIntosh who ported Squeak to the iPhone and also released software built with Squeak (and its cleaned up version Pharo) in the AppStore. The applications make use of Squeak, but also use the Seaside web framework for building GUIs.
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Engine Yard Has Taken Over Ruby 1.8.6 Maintenance
Engine Yard has taken over the maintenance of Ruby 1.8.6. We talked to its new maintainer Kirk Haines to find out what they have planned for the future.
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Rich Hickey on Clojure's Features and Implementation
In this interview from QCon London 2009, Rich Hickey talks about Clojure. The discussion includes the ideas behind Clojure's STM support, what other concurrency primitives Clojure supports and which ones might get added in the future. Other topics covered are Clojure's AOT support, the role and implementation of multimethods, Clojure ports to other systems and much more.
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Performance Roundup: Heap Stacks Boost Threads in 1.8.x, MacRuby AOT, ZenProfile and EventHooks
New patches by Joe Damato improve the efficiency of Ruby 1.8.x's green threads with heap stacks: instead of copying the entire stack at every context switch, the patches actually switch between different stacks. Ryan Davis released zenprofile and event_hook for efficient profiling. Also: work on a MacRuby Ahead of Time compiler using LLVM has started.
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Ruby VM Roundup: Nokogiri and Nailgun on JRuby, Ruby 1.9.1p129, MagLev Update
JRuby 1.3 will allow to reduce startup times in some situations using Nailgun. Nokogiri, a popular XML library, now runs on the latest JRuby thanks to ruby-ffi. Finally: Ruby 1.9.1-p129 is a new release that fixes a few bugs and security issues.
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CrossTwine Linker Aims to Boost MRI and 1.9.1 Performance
CrossTwine aims to improve the performance of MRI, 1.9.1, and Python. Unlike new Ruby VMs, the CrossTwine Linker allows to improve efficiency of the existing interpreters and VMs, while keeping their complete feature set. The company plans to offer services to use the CrossTwine Linker technology to speed up specific applications.
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Implementation Roundup: Ruby 1.8.x update, JRuby on .NET, MacRuby and MagLev Progress
New versions of Ruby 1.8.6 and 1.8.7 are available now. JRuby development moves ahead with experiments with running JRuby on IKVM. Also: MacRuby continues performance work and MagLev now runs RubyGems.
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The Future of ParseTree
The current Ruby 1.9.1 doesn't have the required features to allow ParseTree's runtime features to work - which means some libraries that depend on those features won't work. Examples are Merb's action arguments or heckle. We take a look at the state of ParseTree - and how ruby_parser is a possible way out.
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Ruby Performance Roundup: GC Tuning, MagLev, MacRuby
Ruby's performance is being improved on all fronts. The GC gets help from REE's work on the COW GC and some tunings tips help to fine tune it. MacRuby's VM keeps on improving and tail call optimization was recently added. Also: news of a MagLev Beta in Q2.
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MacRuby 0.5 Will Have Faster VM Based on LLVM,
The first results of performance work on the next version of MacRuby are now available in an experimental branch. A new VM based on LLVM is used and already shows significant speed improvements over earlier MacRuby versions.