From: David Masover <ninja@...>
Date: 2009-10-06T22:08:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby for the wrong reason

On Monday 05 October 2009 10:45:08 pm flebber wrote:
> Which version of Ruby should I use 1.8.6, 1.9.1 or a preview version
> of 1.9.2?

If it's a brand-new project, use 1.9.1.

Unless you do something strange, it should be portable backwards to 1.8.7, and 
with a few (very small) patches, to 1.8.6.

As others say, not all libraries will be available on 1.9.1, but the vast, 
VAST majority are. If you have a choice between two libraries, one which works 
on 1.9.1, and one which doesn't, that's a strong hint about which is more 
actively maintained.

And all other things equal, 1.9.1 is twice as fast as 1.8.6, so there isn't a 
good reason not to use it.

On an existing project, that depends entirely on whether the project has been 
ported to 1.9 yet.

The preview version, you could install it side by side and test, to make sure 
everything still works. But you generally want to use a stable version -- just 
not a stable-as-in-Debian-stable version ;)