The JRuby team has announced the release of JRuby 1.6.0 Release Candidate 1. The final release is still a little way off but the bulk of the work is in place. It's billed as the "largest release of JRuby to date" which, given how awesome 1.5 was, is a big deal, especially as it adds initial Ruby 1.9.2 language and standard library compatibility (though 1.8.7 is still the "default").

So, what's new?

• Ruby 1.9.2 language and API compatibility (use the --1.9 command line option to get it)
• Ruby 1.9.2 stdlib included (even in jruby-complete.jar)
• General performance and stability improvements
• RubyGems 1.4.2 included
• Experimental C extension support (!)

The JRuby team are especially keen for people to try out the new Ruby 1.9.2 support so that they can round out and perfect their 1.9.2 compatibility before the final release.

You can grab the 1.6.0.RC1 builds of JRuby from the JRuby download page. I haven't had any luck with RVM yet but I suspect it'll be supporting this release really soon..

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