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I wonder what will happen to 1.9 branch. It's not supported well by anything. 1.9 is suppose to be a transitional branch anyway... a place where Matz can experiment a bit. 2.0 is suppose to be the next big thing (like Python 3000) but I have no idea if that will ever see the light of the day.

I'm placing my bets on JRuby, Rubinius and MagLev in the meantime.

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Actually nickb, 1.9.1 is no longer thought of as a transitional/development release. It's a stable release we are all expected to migrate to sooner or later.

This change in what version numbers mean definitely isn't known by the entire Ruby community. The O'Reilly books' statements about 1.9 versions being development versions and the fact that 1.9 has been in development until today has made this a little confusing.

I think we were all just used to seeing even numbers as stable release versions. I don't think there's anything wrong with having odd number production release versions.

Also, 1.9 wasn't really an experimental place for Matz, it was initially YARV then Matz conceded it to be the next official ruby branch. None of the future VMs will/have been done by Matz. He actually joked about that during RubyConf 2007... the reason ruby VMs became fast was because Matz was taken out of the picture.

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