I’ve played around with IronRuby lately, but I would like to install the reference implementation also. Needless to say, I’m a noob when it comes to Ruby, so I have a very stupid question.
On the RubyForge download page, there are three different final versions of the Ruby installer (for Windows):
- rubyinstaller-1.8.6-p398.exe
- rubyinstaller-1.8.7-p249.exe
- rubyinstaller-1.9.1-p378.exe
I don’t understand how there can be three different final releases. I can understand that there is one 1.8 release, and one 1.9 release, but why can I choose between 1.8.6 and 1.8.7?
What I really would like to know is what version is the “best one” ? If the answer is “1.9.1”, why would one choose 1.8.6 or 1.8.7 ?
I’m confused…
The reasoning behind 3 different versions of the final installers is based on the following criteria:
1.8.6 has been the most widespread version, used in production servers, so the release has been made for compatibility with these cases
1.8.7 is the newer stable standard defined by Ruby-Core, and is the one mostly likely receive attention from Ruby developers for 1.8 branch
1.9.1 is the newer version of Ruby, based on a new Virtual Machine called YARV. This branch (1.9) is the one taking most of the time attention from Ruby-Core developers.
The reason of the packages is that, be able to satisfy 3 different type of users. Ones trying to mimic production environments, ones starting with 1.8 work and ones using newer features.
There is also 1.9.2-preview3, which is one of the version candidates with newer features set to release by August.
Hope that helps.
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