JRuby vs Java

Overview

Java

Stacks148.0K

Followers105.5K

Votes3.7K

JRuby

Stacks82

Followers89

Votes32

GitHub Stars3.8K

Forks933

JRuby vs Java: What are the differences?

Introduction

When considering the differences between JRuby and Java, it is important to understand the unique characteristics of each technology.

Platform Compatibility: JRuby is a version of the Ruby programming language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), while Java is a general-purpose programming language that is directly compiled to bytecode for the JVM. This means that JRuby can seamlessly interact with existing Java libraries and frameworks, making it an attractive option for developers who want to leverage the power of both Ruby and Java in their applications.
Syntax and Language Features: While JRuby and Java are both based on the object-oriented programming paradigm, they have distinct syntax and language features. JRuby follows the syntax and conventions of Ruby, which is known for its elegant and concise syntax, while Java has a more verbose syntax and stricter rules for object-oriented programming. Developers familiar with Ruby may find JRuby more intuitive to work with, while Java developers may prefer the robustness and predictability of the Java language.
Performance: In terms of performance, Java is generally considered to be faster than JRuby due to its direct compilation to bytecode and optimizations by the JVM. JRuby, on the other hand, has the overhead of running on the JVM and interpreting Ruby code, which can impact performance. For applications where performance is a critical factor, Java may be a better choice, while JRuby may be more suitable for prototyping or applications where developer productivity is a priority.
Community and Ecosystem: The Java community is one of the largest and most active in the software development industry, with a vast ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, and tools. JRuby, being an implementation of Ruby on the JVM, benefits from the Java ecosystem and can leverage Java libraries seamlessly. However, the Ruby community also provides strong support for JRuby, with its own set of gems and community resources tailored for JRuby developers.
Tooling and Integrated Development Environments (IDEs): Java has a rich set of IDEs and development tools, such as IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, and NetBeans, that provide comprehensive support for Java development. JRuby, being a niche technology, may not have the same level of tooling and IDE support as Java. However, developers can still use popular Ruby IDEs like RubyMine or editors like Visual Studio Code for JRuby development, albeit with some limitations in functionality.
Learning Curve and Adoption: Java is a widely adopted language in the enterprise sector, with a large pool of developers proficient in Java. JRuby, while gaining popularity in certain niche domains like web development or integration with Java applications, may have a steeper learning curve for developers unfamiliar with Ruby or the Ruby on Rails framework. Java's ubiquity and established best practices make it a safer choice for large-scale projects with a diverse team of developers.

In Summary, understanding the key differences between JRuby and Java can help developers make informed decisions when choosing the right technology for their projects.

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Advice on Java, JRuby

Erik

Chief Architect at LiveTiles

May 18, 2020

Decided

C# and .Net were obvious choices for us at LiveTiles given our investment in the Microsoft ecosystem. It enabled us to harness of the .Net framework to build ASP.Net MVC, WebAPI, and Serverless applications very easily. Coupled with the high productivity of Visual Studio, it's the native tongue of Microsoft technology.

614k views614k

Comments

Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

176k views176k

Comments

Ido

Mar 6, 2020

Decided

When developing a new blockchain, we as a team chose Go lang over Java and other candidates, due to Go being (a) natively suited to concurrency - there are primitives in the language itself (goroutines, channels) that really help with reasoning about concurrency (b) super fast - build time, running, testing are all much faster that Java, this gives a far superior developer experience (c) shorter and stricter than Java - code is much shorter (less verbose), and there is usually one good way to do things, and even the code formatter that is bundled with Go is very opinionated - over a short time this makes reading other people's code far smoother than having to deal with different styles.

You should be aware that Go presently (v1.13) lacks Generics.

267k views267k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Java	JRuby
Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!	JRuby is the effort to recreate the Ruby (http://www.ruby-lang.org) interpreter in Java. The Java version is tightly integrated with Java to allow both to script any Java class and to embed the interpreter into any Java application. See the docs directory for more information.
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 3.8K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 933
Stacks 148.0K	Stacks 82
Followers 105.5K	Followers 89
Votes 3.7K	Votes 32
Pros & Cons
Pros 608 Great libraries 446 Widely used 401 Excellent tooling 396 Huge amount of documentation available 334 Large pool of developers available Cons 33 Verbosity 27 NullpointerException 17 Nightmare to Write 16 Overcomplexity is praised in community culture 12 Boiler plate code	Pros 8 Java 7 Faster than Ruby 3 Threads 3 JVM 2 Built-in Testing
Integrations
Spring	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Java, JRuby?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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JRuby vs Java: What are the differences?

Introduction

When considering the differences between JRuby and Java, it is important to understand the unique characteristics of each technology.

Platform Compatibility: JRuby is a version of the Ruby programming language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), while Java is a general-purpose programming language that is directly compiled to bytecode for the JVM. This means that JRuby can seamlessly interact with existing Java libraries and frameworks, making it an attractive option for developers who want to leverage the power of both Ruby and Java in their applications.
Syntax and Language Features: While JRuby and Java are both based on the object-oriented programming paradigm, they have distinct syntax and language features. JRuby follows the syntax and conventions of Ruby, which is known for its elegant and concise syntax, while Java has a more verbose syntax and stricter rules for object-oriented programming. Developers familiar with Ruby may find JRuby more intuitive to work with, while Java developers may prefer the robustness and predictability of the Java language.
Performance: In terms of performance, Java is generally considered to be faster than JRuby due to its direct compilation to bytecode and optimizations by the JVM. JRuby, on the other hand, has the overhead of running on the JVM and interpreting Ruby code, which can impact performance. For applications where performance is a critical factor, Java may be a better choice, while JRuby may be more suitable for prototyping or applications where developer productivity is a priority.
Community and Ecosystem: The Java community is one of the largest and most active in the software development industry, with a vast ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, and tools. JRuby, being an implementation of Ruby on the JVM, benefits from the Java ecosystem and can leverage Java libraries seamlessly. However, the Ruby community also provides strong support for JRuby, with its own set of gems and community resources tailored for JRuby developers.
Tooling and Integrated Development Environments (IDEs): Java has a rich set of IDEs and development tools, such as IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, and NetBeans, that provide comprehensive support for Java development. JRuby, being a niche technology, may not have the same level of tooling and IDE support as Java. However, developers can still use popular Ruby IDEs like RubyMine or editors like Visual Studio Code for JRuby development, albeit with some limitations in functionality.
Learning Curve and Adoption: Java is a widely adopted language in the enterprise sector, with a large pool of developers proficient in Java. JRuby, while gaining popularity in certain niche domains like web development or integration with Java applications, may have a steeper learning curve for developers unfamiliar with Ruby or the Ruby on Rails framework. Java's ubiquity and established best practices make it a safer choice for large-scale projects with a diverse team of developers.

In Summary, understanding the key differences between JRuby and Java can help developers make informed decisions when choosing the right technology for their projects.