From: Yorick Peterse <yorickpeterse@...> Date: 2014-01-22T13:47:59+01:00 Subject: [ruby-core:59978] Re: [ruby-trunk - misc #9438] Implementation naming > Issue #9438 has been updated by Hiroshi SHIBATA. > We should use "Ruby". This would imply that MRI is the only Ruby implementation, or at least the only one that matters. I'd say this is very far from the truth as there are quite a few different implementations out there. Rubinius and JRuby are just two but there's also Maglev, Topaz and a few others. Stating that Ruby and MRI are the same would lead to confusion. Because of this one might think that JRuby and MRI are the same things when in reality they're not. In short, Ruby is the language and not the implementation. I could create an implementation called CatRuby that's powered by cats, but that wouldn't make Ruby and CatRuby identical to each other. Personally I'd stick with MRI/CRuby as those are already the two commonly used terms. CRuby is a bit more explicit about the underlying technology whereas MRI is a bit more explicit about the people behind it.