Connecting the Worlds of Java and Ruby with JRuby Webinar

The slides from the presentation [can also be downloaded](http://assets.engineyard.com/pdfs/webinar-slides-connecting-java-ruby.pdf). We ran out of time before getting to all your questions. Here are my responses to the questions we weren't able to field during the live webinar. _What are the best communities or places to go to ask questions and learn more about JRuby on Rails?_ Certainly JRuby.org and the JRuby mailing lists, and to some extent the Rails mailing lists if the questions are not too JRuby-specific. We on the JRuby team also monitor JRuby-related questions on StackOverflow.com, and there is a volume of questions there already. The JRuby team also is usually present in the IRC room #jruby on irc.freenode.net, so feel free to stop by there to chat. You can also follow [@jruby on Twitter](http://twitter.com/jruby) to stay on top of important updates. _Do you have any prediction or comments on Ruby/JRuby adoption in the enterprise in the next couple of years?_ I'm personally bullish on JRuby adoption and consider it part of my mission on the JRuby team to make it happen. It's hard to say in exact terms how it will increase, but a number of factors, such as the growing acceptance and maturity of Ruby and Rails, the participation at JRuby-related events, the new Using JRuby book, and the availability of knowledge, training, and documentation around Ruby and JRuby should all play a role. We also typically have a hard time knowing exactly how many people are using JRuby, because of course they're not required to tell us. We are usually surprised at conferences and meetups to hear of another organization successfully using JRuby in their own projects. Any business looking to try to inject new life into their Java-based projects should look at JRuby to help accelerate development of their systems and take advantage of the array of innovations the Ruby and Rails communities have brought to web development and cloud computing. _How is the gem support in JRuby? For example, can I use Nokogiri?_ Gem support is generally good. For Nokogiri in particular, check out the 1.5 beta releases which will have a pure-Java backend to replace the previous issues suffered with the FFI implementation. We tend to lag a bit behind the community for releases of gems that contain C extensions. The new C extension API support in the upcoming JRuby 1.6 release will mitigate that a bit, but we also rely on the community to help us port the most popular gems when it's apparent that a Java-backed API would be more useful. _How is the refactoring support in Ruby dev tools?_ It's not up to par with Java-based refactoring tools, but rarely do you need that level of control. Tools like RubyMine help with renaming, extraction and organization of code. Of course any refactoring exercises should be supported by a solid test suite, and fortunately Ruby has a strong culture of testing to reinforce that. _We are building iPad, iPhone and Android apps in HTML5, based on jQuery. Can we use JRuby with an Engine Yard background running?_ Sounds like a great choice! We'd be happy to help you get up and running. _How to access a Spring context from a JRuby on Rails controller?_ We actually have a [nice JRuby on Rails article on the JRuby wiki](http://wiki.jruby.org/JRubyOnRailsWithSpring) on this topic. It should still basically work, let us know if you have any problems following it. _Any info on including JRuby as a scripting framework in a NetBeans platform application?_ I haven't heard any specifics around NetBeans RCP development using JRuby, but it sounds like a good idea. Start with [ documentation on the JRuby wiki on JRuby's embedding API](http://wiki.jruby.org/RedBridge) to get an idea of some possibilities. As always, feel free to contact us for help or more ideas. We want to hear from you.