On 7/29/07, Ola Bini <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > So, once again, the question of which should be the minimum Java version > to run JRuby. We are currently at 1.4.2, but the proposal is to move to > 5 for trunk and all major releases from now on. This does not concern > the 1.0.x-series. > > I wrote a blog post about it, and got quite many replies. Almost all of > them very positive about going to 5, but there were a few that > represents my gut feel about it. Take this for example, from Jesper: > I think for a lot of users one of the most compelling aspects of JRuby > is it's ability to sneak Ruby into the enterprise. If you decide to > ditch 1.4, many enterprises will not be able to run JRuby (and Rails) on > their existing infrastructure - and these guys *don't* just upgrade. > Besides from Websphere 6 and Weblogic 9 also Oracle Application Server > 10g is using 1.4.2. > For now, the cutting edge shops are running CRuby/Mongrel and in the > enterprise shops we can sneak in a little magic with JRuby. So for now, > please stay on 1.4. > > > I also asked on one of the internal Java discussion lists for TW, and > the results were mixed to. What was obvious was that we needed some way > to handle backwards compatibility, and retroweaver wouldn't be enough. > Further, staying on 1.0.x may not be an option either, since we're doing > substantial changes in trunk now. > > I'm feeling deeply torn, especially since I know many of the features of > Java 5 will make our lives easier. Can we go the middleground? > Development and building has to be done with Java 5 or later, meaning > that the source code can contain annotations, which we can use to do > code generation with apt. We can force the resulting jars to be > 1.4-compliant anyway. We could also make dual distributions, where the > 5+ distribution contains real concurrency instead of the backport, and > so forth. > > I don't really know how to solve this problem in a good way. > > Cheers > > -- > Ola Bini (http://ola-bini.blogspot.com) > JRuby Core Developer > Developer, ThoughtWorks Studios (http://studios.thoughtworks.com) > > "Yields falsehood when quined" yields falsehood when quined.
There is the saying that fact trumps intuition. From this mailing list, it doesn't sound like there is much of a cry for 1.4. What exactly is the market for JRuby? Is having the fastest and most capable Ruby implementation the end game? Maybe some sacrifices have to be made to get there. I'd like to think that most of us are here because we see that this project is headed in that direction. A lot of us are enjoying some free lunch and understand the ground rules of doing so. Projects of this sort aren't maintained for charity as they do serve the direct interests of those involved. BEA, IBM, Oracle, and anyone else is welcome to maintain support for 1.4.
