Sun Microsystems announces a new version of its JRuby project to deliver an implementation of Ruby on the Java Virtual Machine.

Not to be outdone by Microsoft's news of a new hire to help implement Ruby on .Net, Sun Microsystems has made its own Ruby announcement regarding recent hires.

Sun announced that on Oct. 20, the JRuby team released JRuby 0.9.1 and is continuing work toward version 1.0.

Sun hired the chief maintainers of JRuby, Thomas Enebo and Charles Nutter, in September to help the company deliver an implementation of the Ruby dynamic language on the Java Virtual Machine.

And on Oct. 21, Microsoft announced that it has hired John Lam, a Ruby expert, to help with its effort to implement dynamic languages on the Microsoft Common Language Runtime.

Enebo, one of the core developers of JRuby, said this release of the platform has some significant improvements over previous releases, including that overall performance is 50 to 60 percent faster than JRuby 0.9.0.

It also features improved Ruby on Rails support; new syntax for including Java classes into Ruby; a new interpreter design; refactoring of method dispatch, code evaluation and block dispatch code; parser performance enhancement; rewriting of Enumerable and StringScanner in Java; new experimental syntax for implementing interfaces; and 86 Jira bug issues resolved since 0.9.0, he said.

In addition, "Ola Bini has been inducted into JRuby as a core developer during this development cycle," Enebo said in a blog post.

Bini is a Ruby expert, systems architect and developer based in Stockholm.

"He has been coding like an unstoppable machine, and we want to make sure he gets the recognition he deserves."

Moreover, "JRuby feels quite a bit snappier, and the new syntax for including classes is great," Enebo said.

Click here to read more about the JRuby project.

"Basing the amount of progress we have made in the last month, I expect massive improvements coming in the next month or two."

Sun is heading toward a version 1.0 release of JRuby, while Microsoft has delivered a version 1.0 release of IronPython, its implementation of Python on .Net.

With the addition of Lam, Microsoft is likely to pursue an implementation of Ruby, sources said.

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.

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