The real point to take from Antonio Cangiano’s article, Holy Shmoly, Ruby 1.9 smokes Python away!, is not that Ruby 1.9 runs circles around Python, but that Ruby 1.9’s performance appears to be dramatically better than Ruby 1.8’s.
Keep in mind that the article cites only one benchmark, a simple Fibonacci script:
def fib(n)
if n == 0 || n == 1
n
else
fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)
end
end
36.times do |i|
puts "n=#{i} => #{fib(i)}"
end
On Cangiano’s machine, Ruby 1.8 took 159 seconds to run the script. Ruby 1.9 completed the task 13 times faster, clocking in at just under 12 seconds.
I’ll repeat what I said earlier: this is just one test. If you want to give Ruby 1.9 a proper performance shakedown, you’ll need to install it on your machine and compare its performance with Ruby 1.8 using a number of scripts. Luckily, the Ruby Inside blog has an article titled How to Start Playing with Ruby 1.9 Right Now! that provides easy instructions for acquiring and installing Ruby 1.9 in its own separate directory. I may just have to take 1.9 for a spin soon.