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Issue 134 - February 28, 2013 
From the Editor's Desk..
Last Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of work commencing on Ruby way back in 1993 and it was celebrated in style with the final release of Ruby 2.0.0. Congratulations to Matz along with the rest of the core team and anyone else who has contributed over the years to the rich Ruby ecosystem we enjoy today. Now.. on to an extremely release heavy issue.
Featured
A big development in the Ruby world that can't be summarized in one link, so we have a whole Ruby 2.0 section further down ;-) As well as the usual ways (direct, RVM, ruby-build), Ruby 2.0 is also available via Bitnami's Ruby Stack and on Windows through RubyInstaller.
Not content to let us play with Ruby 2.0 for too long, Rails has gotten in on the release action with the first beta of the long awaited 4.0. DHH summarizes the update for us here.
Ruby 1.9.3 gets an update to address more security vulnerabilities, this time in REXML (the XML parser in the standard library) and the JSON library. Upgrade your 1.9.3 to this, even if you're not headed to 2.0 yet.
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Spotlight on Ruby 2.0
Dave Thomas' popular 'Pickaxe' Ruby reference book has been released in its 4th edition and now covers both Ruby 1.9 and 2.0. The 2nd edition is still available if you need a 1.8 reference, however.
Metacasts is a pay-for screencasting site by Mark Bates but for just the next few days he's made his look at Ruby 2.0 available to everyone in celebration of the release.
A slide-deck by Urabe Shyouhei of the Ruby core team that covers some of what's new in Ruby 2.0.
A collection of short programs that highlight various Ruby 2.0 features including refinements and lazy enumeration.
Reading
Steve Klabnik clears up what the official policies are on maintaining 'old' versions of Rails with regards to bug fixes, security updates, and new features.
Only updated in its e-book format for now.
A slide deck by Mike Leone that covers some of the differences between Ruby and Python while attempting to sell us on the idea of giving Python a go.
Libraries and Code
Bug fixes and, importantly, Ruby 2.0 support for Rails 3.2. Steve Klabnik's first Rails release too.
Comes with Ruby 2.0 but can be used on 1.9. Requires Bundler 1.3.0 (also released this week).
Not to be left out of the deluge of releases, here's a new RC of Passenger 4.0. However, it's not fully tested on Ruby 2.0 and they advise sticking with 1.9.3 for now.
1.3.3 was a couple of years ago now so it's great to see a new release of this popular gem. Lots of little fixes and tweaks but also new support for RDoc 4.0, Asciidoctor, and Redcarpet 2.
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Jobs
Seeking smart, kind folks who want to make the world a little better through development, training and writing about cutting-edge code.
FreeAgent are looking for a talented full-stack web app engineer to come and join their amazing team on their mission to democratize small business accounting.
Last but not least..
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