From: Rick DeNatale Date: 2007-12-27T07:53:07+09:00 Subject: Re: Purpose of Ruby 1.9? On Dec 26, 2007 5:39 PM, Windham, Kristopher R. wrote: > in the Desktop reference by Matz, printed in 2002, > he says .. > "Developmental releases of Ruby always have an odd minor revision > number such as 1.5 or 1.7. > Once a developmental release is stable and finalized, it's then > "promoted" to a stable release. Stable releases always have an even > minor revision number such as 2.0 or3.2. Therefore, releases with > even subversion numbers are stable releases. Releases with odd > subversion numbers are developmental versions..." > I assume this is still the case. > Do not ever use a developmental release for production. > As far as intentions for 1.9.x, I will leave that answer to some one > else. Matz announced a change to this versioning policy a few months ago on the ruby core forum. 1.9 which has been in a state of definitional flux for over a year, with experimental features being added to the language, then changed or dropped, was to have become functionally stable yesterday. As I understand it the intent was that yesterday's release was to have been 1.9.1 instead of 1.9.0, which would have signalled this stability. I think that the language definition for Ruby 1.9 is now pretty well fixed, although Matz has reserved the right to make changes in the case that a major mistake is found. At the same time he made the remarks about the versioning changes, Matz indicated that 1.9.1 would still not be production ready and that the implementation would still be evolving over the next several months. The intention, as I read it, was to put a stake in the ground with a definitionally stable 1.9 so that the developers of important ruby code like Rails, etc. could start developing versions compatible with the new language. I'm a little concerned that some folks are jumping on 1.9 as an immediate replacement for Ruby 1.8, which it isn't. -- Rick DeNatale My blog on Ruby http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/