7 ms·

Ruby 2.1.5 Released

92 points by reledi 12y ago

Tomte 12y ago
My interest in Ruby wanes a bit every time there is a new Ruby release, but no corresponding Windows installer on rubyinstaller.org I really like the language and used to reach for it as a first instinct, but nowadays it almost lost its mindshare with me. I understand that there are open bugs that are tricky, but I get the very serious impression that the core Ruby devs simply don't care about Windows at all (a bit like it used to be with git). Bad move, I think.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  Haven't developed on Windows in years but is there no package manager you can access via the command line or is an installer necessary?
  - Tomte 12y ago
    There is no current Windows build of Ruby at all.
    - thinkbohemian 12y ago
      I don't think they're talking about a released build, but rather building it yourself from source (http://madcoderspeak.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-compile-ruby-from-source-on.html http://madcoderspeak.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-compile-rub...) which is what all mac and linux users do. Even the ruby package managers we use (i.e. ruby-install, rvm, etc.) don't have pre-built binaries, they download tagged source files with checksums and run build commands.
    - cremno 12y ago
      And what has that do with the core developers? Is there a bug that prevents 2.1.5, but not 2.1.4 from running on Windows? The hostility against Windows is usually rather a community issue. And they're not releasing pre-compiled versions for any other OS either. Build it yourself [1] or try to be patient until Luis Lavena uploads the Ruby Installer for 2.1.5. [1] https://github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller https://github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller (edit config/ruby_installer.rb to compile 2.1.5 and not 2.1.4)
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - rikkus 12y ago
    Yes there's chocolatey which seems to be the most popular at the moment. Latest version there is 2.1.3 at the time of comment: http://chocolatey.org/packages/ruby http://chocolatey.org/packages/ruby
- spleen 12y ago
  The Ruby for Windows build is maintained by enthusiasts and is usually available within a day or two. Nothing too alarming, since v2.1.4 is available: http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/ http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/
  - Tomte 12y ago
    Cool, that's new! For ages there was only 2.0 available. Being a patch release behind is no big deal indeed.
- bdcravens 12y ago
  Listen to the most recent Ruby Rogues podcast - they talk with the maintainer of RubyInstaller, and I came out of it thinking the Windows story wasn't as bad as I thought. http://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/181-rr-rubyinstaller-with-luis-lavena http://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/181-rr-rubyinstaller-with-luis...
- adrianlmm 12y ago
  I'm stick to Ruby 1.9.3 on Windows, Ruby 2.1.4 can be installed, but some important Gems won't work, so I cannot install Sinatra for example. So, I cannot stay like this, I like Ruby, but I cannot be at the mercy of their lack of attention for Windows, so, as soon Asp.Net MVC 6 is released I'm going to migrate my Sinatra web App to Asp MVC 6.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    The only important gems I've had problems with on Windows with newer Rubies are native extensions that don't support 64-bit Windows correctly when using the x64 build of 2.1+. A lot of other problems I've seen involve confusion over the right version of devkit for the right ruby build, which is made worse by the way devkits helpful install tools just identify all ruby installs and try to install debit by default into all of them rather than having knowledge about what ruby versions the debit version goes with and having default behavior that applies that knowledge.
- jesalg 12y ago
  Just use Vagrant. It's so much easier.
- vectorpush 12y ago
  You seem a little entitled. This may not be politically correct, but frankly, Ruby is nix style software, Windows support seems like its just a courtesy. Perhaps I'm living in a linux-nerd bubble, but why would anyone even use ruby when targeting the Windows platform? Seems like .NET would be a more appropriate choice across the board (be it for web or Windows application development). I can't imagine the type of pain involved in deploying Ruby code into production in a Windows environment, that just seems insane. This is all to say, maybe Ruby isn't the best choice for a Windows developer. If one simply enjoys the Windows experience in general, at the very least, if I were developing Ruby in Windows, I'd expect to use a *nix VM via SSH thru cygwin or something.
  - MrBra 12y ago
    > but why would anyone even use ruby when targeting the Windows platform? Ruby presents itself as fun-to-code-in programming language. And it is very much so. That's why a lot people like using it. Having to setup a whole new environment just to have their fav code tool at hand or having to boot a virtual machine each time just to use it it's much more inpractical, introduces overhead (e.g. sending files on which to work on with Ruby to the VM) and basically, for reasons I am sure you know, does not feel the same than having it installed locally. As you said the fact that you are advocating that people should not be able to use Ruby on Windows just feels a bit of a *nix nerdy-bubble biased thought.
    - vectorpush 12y ago
      Use the right tool for the job. I adore Ruby, but I don't think its very practical to shoehorn it into a role where it's a less optimal solution compared to the other available options. > Having to setup a whole new environment just to have their fav code tool at hand or having to boot a virtual machine each time just to use it it's much more inpractical VMs are part of the modern developer landscape and are actually quite trivial to setup. Further, once your VM is built, it requires no further effort beyond the couple clicks it takes to boot up the VM and shell (especially because most developers avoid reboots). > As you said the fact that you are advocating that people should not be able to use Ruby on Windows just feels a bit of a nix nerdy-bubble biased thought.* I think it's pretty obvious that I'm not advocating programmers shouldn't be able to use Ruby on Windows, they should use whatever they want, but I think they should also temper their expectations with the reality that Ruby on Windows is a pretty small niche, especially for web development (likely the most common use-case for Ruby).
crohr 12y ago
For anyone interested, DEB and RPM packages are available at https://packager.io/gh/pkgr/rubies https://packager.io/gh/pkgr/rubies for various distributions. For instance for ubuntu 14.04: https://packager.io/gh/pkgr/rubies/install?bid=28#ubuntu-14-04-ruby-2-1 https://packager.io/gh/pkgr/rubies/install?bid=28#ubuntu-14-...
- sciurus 12y ago
  Thanks for sharing this! I have been using the brightbox packages, but they are no longer updating 1.9 or 2.0 [1]. https://github.com/brightbox/deb-ruby2.0/pull/3#issuecomment-57290627 https://github.com/brightbox/deb-ruby2.0/pull/3#issuecomment...
- stewbrew 12y ago
  Wouldn't one rather want to use rvm?
  - jerhinesmith 12y ago
    RVM/rbenv/chruby are generally discouraged on production servers.
    - andyl 12y ago
      Not for me! Being able to easily swap rubies in production gives a lot of flexibility. I've found that Chruby in production has been very reliable and easy to manage.
      - s0l1dsnak3123 12y ago
        Yep, there are also significant performance benefits in compiling ruby for your machine if you're running on bare metal.
    - rubiquity 12y ago
      I don't know why you are being downvoted, you are absolutely correct. If you need update something as important as a programming language version, you should be rebuilding the server entirely a la Immutable Infrastructure. If you're using Docker, it's as simple as building a new docker image with the latest Ruby version.
barbudorojo 12y ago
not a big deal here, fixed a DoS vulnerability of REXML, and some small bug fixes, textually: Sorry for the inconvenience of frequent releases.
thinkbohemian 12y ago
If you're still running a Ruby 2.1.0, 2.1.1, or 2.1.2 (i.e. less than 2.1.3) you're missing out on some killer memory optimizations. I saw huge savings in my production app when i bumped from 2.1.2 to 2.1.3. Also 2.1.5 is available on Heroku: https://devcenter.heroku.com/changelog https://devcenter.heroku.com/changelog Think HN is loosing its touch. It's been on Reddit for over 24 hours: http://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/2m6p6n/ruby_215_is_released/ http://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/2m6p6n/ruby_215_is_rel.... Anywhoo, glad for the publicity, please upgrade your Rubies.
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  From experience expect to see a lot of heroku memory errors if you're using anything above 2.0.0. Heroku supports these newer ruby versions but they trigger memory errors like it's nobodies business. 2.0.0 means no memory errors.
  - jerhinesmith 12y ago
    Yep, I played around with different GC settings for ~2 days before I gave up and reverted back to 2.0. I keep hoping pressure from other hosting companies will push heroku to up the default dynos to 1gb ram (current is 512mb).
  - thinkbohemian 12y ago
    > 2.0.0 means no memory errors 2.1 has a totally new GC setup (generational GC). It is guaranteed to use more memory (expect 3~5%), but be MUCH MUCH MUCH faster. Typically you can trade off running one less Puma worker to decrease memory usage, and the increase in speed may make up for it. Alternatively you can bump up to 2x dynos, and cut the number of dynos you have in half. If you haven't tried 2.1.3 or above do yourself a favor and revisit. The 2.1.3 patch means memory grows much more slowly. Also if you didn't see my post on memory profiling: http://www.schneems.com/2014/11/07/i-ram-what-i-ram.html http://www.schneems.com/2014/11/07/i-ram-what-i-ram.html (It got over 40 upvotes on reddit, and like 3 on HN, again...HN what is going on? I've had much less substantial posts make it front page). That post shows you how to remove ~30% starting RAM (by bumping mail version to 2.6.3+) and shows you can profile and remove libraries that are using a ton of memory in your app. You can also use something like puma_worker_killer (or unicorn_worker_killer) to tame your memory growth if it only balloons over 512mb after a while, but ultimately those two solutions are bandaids. Ruby 2.0 isn't going to be supported forever and the generational GC is definitely here to stay. Maybe try the 2.2.0 preview (it's on Heroku), it has 3 generations (total) which means much less retained memory and you still get speed performance improvements. I see most of the bigger production apps using 2.1+ fwiw.

92 points by reledi 12y ago

Tomte 12y ago

My interest in Ruby wanes a bit every time there is a new Ruby release, but no corresponding Windows installer on rubyinstaller.org I really like the language and used to reach for it as a first instinct, but nowadays it almost lost its mindshare with me. I understand that there are open bugs that are tricky, but I get the very serious impression that the core Ruby devs simply don't care about Windows at all (a bit like it used to be with git). Bad move, I think.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
Haven't developed on Windows in years but is there no package manager you can access via the command line or is an installer necessary?
- Tomte 12y ago
  There is no current Windows build of Ruby at all.
  - thinkbohemian 12y ago
    I don't think they're talking about a released build, but rather building it yourself from source (http://madcoderspeak.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-compile-ruby-from-source-on.html http://madcoderspeak.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-compile-rub...) which is what all mac and linux users do. Even the ruby package managers we use (i.e. ruby-install, rvm, etc.) don't have pre-built binaries, they download tagged source files with checksums and run build commands.
  - cremno 12y ago
    And what has that do with the core developers? Is there a bug that prevents 2.1.5, but not 2.1.4 from running on Windows? The hostility against Windows is usually rather a community issue. And they're not releasing pre-compiled versions for any other OS either. Build it yourself [1] or try to be patient until Luis Lavena uploads the Ruby Installer for 2.1.5. [1] https://github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller https://github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller (edit config/ruby_installer.rb to compile 2.1.5 and not 2.1.4)
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- rikkus 12y ago
  Yes there's chocolatey which seems to be the most popular at the moment. Latest version there is 2.1.3 at the time of comment: http://chocolatey.org/packages/ruby http://chocolatey.org/packages/ruby
spleen 12y ago
The Ruby for Windows build is maintained by enthusiasts and is usually available within a day or two. Nothing too alarming, since v2.1.4 is available: http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/ http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/
- Tomte 12y ago
  Cool, that's new! For ages there was only 2.0 available. Being a patch release behind is no big deal indeed.
bdcravens 12y ago
Listen to the most recent Ruby Rogues podcast - they talk with the maintainer of RubyInstaller, and I came out of it thinking the Windows story wasn't as bad as I thought. http://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/181-rr-rubyinstaller-with-luis-lavena http://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/181-rr-rubyinstaller-with-luis...
adrianlmm 12y ago
I'm stick to Ruby 1.9.3 on Windows, Ruby 2.1.4 can be installed, but some important Gems won't work, so I cannot install Sinatra for example. So, I cannot stay like this, I like Ruby, but I cannot be at the mercy of their lack of attention for Windows, so, as soon Asp.Net MVC 6 is released I'm going to migrate my Sinatra web App to Asp MVC 6.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  The only important gems I've had problems with on Windows with newer Rubies are native extensions that don't support 64-bit Windows correctly when using the x64 build of 2.1+. A lot of other problems I've seen involve confusion over the right version of devkit for the right ruby build, which is made worse by the way devkits helpful install tools just identify all ruby installs and try to install debit by default into all of them rather than having knowledge about what ruby versions the debit version goes with and having default behavior that applies that knowledge.
jesalg 12y ago
Just use Vagrant. It's so much easier.
vectorpush 12y ago
You seem a little entitled. This may not be politically correct, but frankly, Ruby is nix style software, Windows support seems like its just a courtesy. Perhaps I'm living in a linux-nerd bubble, but why would anyone even use ruby when targeting the Windows platform? Seems like .NET would be a more appropriate choice across the board (be it for web or Windows application development). I can't imagine the type of pain involved in deploying Ruby code into production in a Windows environment, that just seems insane. This is all to say, maybe Ruby isn't the best choice for a Windows developer. If one simply enjoys the Windows experience in general, at the very least, if I were developing Ruby in Windows, I'd expect to use a *nix VM via SSH thru cygwin or something.
- MrBra 12y ago
  > but why would anyone even use ruby when targeting the Windows platform? Ruby presents itself as fun-to-code-in programming language. And it is very much so. That's why a lot people like using it. Having to setup a whole new environment just to have their fav code tool at hand or having to boot a virtual machine each time just to use it it's much more inpractical, introduces overhead (e.g. sending files on which to work on with Ruby to the VM) and basically, for reasons I am sure you know, does not feel the same than having it installed locally. As you said the fact that you are advocating that people should not be able to use Ruby on Windows just feels a bit of a *nix nerdy-bubble biased thought.
  - vectorpush 12y ago
    Use the right tool for the job. I adore Ruby, but I don't think its very practical to shoehorn it into a role where it's a less optimal solution compared to the other available options. > Having to setup a whole new environment just to have their fav code tool at hand or having to boot a virtual machine each time just to use it it's much more inpractical VMs are part of the modern developer landscape and are actually quite trivial to setup. Further, once your VM is built, it requires no further effort beyond the couple clicks it takes to boot up the VM and shell (especially because most developers avoid reboots). > As you said the fact that you are advocating that people should not be able to use Ruby on Windows just feels a bit of a nix nerdy-bubble biased thought.* I think it's pretty obvious that I'm not advocating programmers shouldn't be able to use Ruby on Windows, they should use whatever they want, but I think they should also temper their expectations with the reality that Ruby on Windows is a pretty small niche, especially for web development (likely the most common use-case for Ruby).

crohr 12y ago

For anyone interested, DEB and RPM packages are available at https://packager.io/gh/pkgr/rubies https://packager.io/gh/pkgr/rubies for various distributions. For instance for ubuntu 14.04: https://packager.io/gh/pkgr/rubies/install?bid=28#ubuntu-14-04-ruby-2-1 https://packager.io/gh/pkgr/rubies/install?bid=28#ubuntu-14-...

sciurus 12y ago
Thanks for sharing this! I have been using the brightbox packages, but they are no longer updating 1.9 or 2.0 [1]. https://github.com/brightbox/deb-ruby2.0/pull/3#issuecomment-57290627 https://github.com/brightbox/deb-ruby2.0/pull/3#issuecomment...
stewbrew 12y ago
Wouldn't one rather want to use rvm?
- jerhinesmith 12y ago
  RVM/rbenv/chruby are generally discouraged on production servers.
  - andyl 12y ago
    Not for me! Being able to easily swap rubies in production gives a lot of flexibility. I've found that Chruby in production has been very reliable and easy to manage.
    - s0l1dsnak3123 12y ago
      Yep, there are also significant performance benefits in compiling ruby for your machine if you're running on bare metal.
  - rubiquity 12y ago
    I don't know why you are being downvoted, you are absolutely correct. If you need update something as important as a programming language version, you should be rebuilding the server entirely a la Immutable Infrastructure. If you're using Docker, it's as simple as building a new docker image with the latest Ruby version.

barbudorojo 12y ago

not a big deal here, fixed a DoS vulnerability of REXML, and some small bug fixes, textually: Sorry for the inconvenience of frequent releases.

thinkbohemian 12y ago

If you're still running a Ruby 2.1.0, 2.1.1, or 2.1.2 (i.e. less than 2.1.3) you're missing out on some killer memory optimizations. I saw huge savings in my production app when i bumped from 2.1.2 to 2.1.3. Also 2.1.5 is available on Heroku: https://devcenter.heroku.com/changelog https://devcenter.heroku.com/changelog Think HN is loosing its touch. It's been on Reddit for over 24 hours: http://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/2m6p6n/ruby_215_is_released/ http://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/2m6p6n/ruby_215_is_rel.... Anywhoo, glad for the publicity, please upgrade your Rubies.

sergiotapia 12y ago
From experience expect to see a lot of heroku memory errors if you're using anything above 2.0.0. Heroku supports these newer ruby versions but they trigger memory errors like it's nobodies business. 2.0.0 means no memory errors.
- jerhinesmith 12y ago
  Yep, I played around with different GC settings for ~2 days before I gave up and reverted back to 2.0. I keep hoping pressure from other hosting companies will push heroku to up the default dynos to 1gb ram (current is 512mb).
- thinkbohemian 12y ago
  > 2.0.0 means no memory errors 2.1 has a totally new GC setup (generational GC). It is guaranteed to use more memory (expect 3~5%), but be MUCH MUCH MUCH faster. Typically you can trade off running one less Puma worker to decrease memory usage, and the increase in speed may make up for it. Alternatively you can bump up to 2x dynos, and cut the number of dynos you have in half. If you haven't tried 2.1.3 or above do yourself a favor and revisit. The 2.1.3 patch means memory grows much more slowly. Also if you didn't see my post on memory profiling: http://www.schneems.com/2014/11/07/i-ram-what-i-ram.html http://www.schneems.com/2014/11/07/i-ram-what-i-ram.html (It got over 40 upvotes on reddit, and like 3 on HN, again...HN what is going on? I've had much less substantial posts make it front page). That post shows you how to remove ~30% starting RAM (by bumping mail version to 2.6.3+) and shows you can profile and remove libraries that are using a ton of memory in your app. You can also use something like puma_worker_killer (or unicorn_worker_killer) to tame your memory growth if it only balloons over 512mb after a while, but ultimately those two solutions are bandaids. Ruby 2.0 isn't going to be supported forever and the generational GC is definitely here to stay. Maybe try the 2.2.0 preview (it's on Heroku), it has 3 generations (total) which means much less retained memory and you still get speed performance improvements. I see most of the bigger production apps using 2.1+ fwiw.