If it's mainly the performance you're after, have a look at JRuby. It's already a decent chunk faster than MRI/YARV, and with Java 7 and invokedynamic there's

If it's mainly the performance you're after, have a look at JRuby. It's already a decent chunk faster than MRI/YARV, and with Java 7 and invokedynamic there's a lot more to look forward to and play with now. Last week one of the JRuby core devs tweeted: "Ok, another set of tweaks in JRuby and fib(35) is another 10% faster (and only about 10% slower than Java. Do I stop now?"