--- title: "Ruby 3.4, and some sad news" publication: "Ruby Weekly" issue: 732 published_at: "2024-12-28" canonical_url: "https://rubyweekly.com/issues/732" --- It's a random Christmas break issue. | #โ€‹732 โ€” December 28, 2024 [Read on the Web](https://rubyweekly.com/issues/732) ๐ŸŽ„ Hi folks. We're not back properly till January 9, 2025, but with Ruby getting its traditional big Christmas Day release, I wanted to drop in and say hi. Sadly, there's also some tragic news I need to share at the end of the issue (consider this a content warning if you need to). __ _Peter Cooper and the Cooperpress team_ Ruby Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/ogliupatdahfcf90easr.jpg)](https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2024/12/25/ruby-3-4-0-released/) [Ruby 3.4 Released](https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2024/12/25/ruby-3-4-0-released/) โ€” It wouldnโ€™t be Christmas without a major Ruby release and this year delivers Ruby 3.4 complete with a variety of improvements and updates: - You can now use `it` to refer to an unnamed block parameter (a la `_1`). - [Prism](https://ruby.github.io/prism/rb/index.html) has become the default Ruby parser. - Ruby's `Socket` now performs IPv6 and IPv4 name resolution concurrently โ€“ an approach with the quirky name of [Happy Eyeballs Version 2](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8305) (RFC 8305). - YJIT's performance and reliability continue to improve. - There's initial support for modular garbage collection, allowing you to load in alternative GC implementations via an environment variable. - String literals in files without a `frozen_string_literal` comment emit a deprecation warning when mutated. - And.. much more! We look forward to digging deeper in 2025. Yui Naruse ๐Ÿ’ก Note that due to a quirk in the Ruby 3.4.0 release, [Ruby 3.4.1](https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2024/12/25/ruby-3-4-1-released/) followed shortly thereafter to tidy things up, so that's the version you should be installing. RIP Noah Gibbs ![](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/aaalrlfstgjw4frut9fh.jpg) On Boxing Day, Nate Berkopec [shared the tragic news](https://x.com/nateberkopec/status/1872394023828369411) that Rubyist Noah Gibbs passed away at some time over the past couple of weeks. Many of you will be familiar with Noah through his work on YJIT at Shopify (he was on the team that [ported YJIT to Rust](https://shopify.engineering/ruby-yjit-is-production-ready)), as well as [Rebuilding Rails](https://rebuilding-rails.com/), [his talks at many Ruby events](https://www.rubyvideo.dev/speakers/noah-gibbs), and [his in-depth blog posts](https://www.fastruby.io/blog/ruby/performance/why-wasnt-ruby-3-faster.html) about Ruby performance. Noah's wife requests that if you have any stories about Noah that [you submit them via this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfQgRPWa7AjjfrOJKjgExKb-SEnOx6ojqTcJgzvWbEvuGBRfA/viewform) so his family and children can learn more about him and his work in ways that they might have not been aware of. His wife has [also suggested](https://ruby.social/@codefolio/113723421161885762) it would be nice if there could be a scholarship or similar program in his name at future Ruby conferences, as his passion in life was helping people learn. Our thoughts go out to his friends and family at this time. His work and presence has benefitted all of us as Rubyists and he will be sorely missed. ๐ŸŽ„ We'll see you again in full on Thursday, January 9, 2025. Curated by [Peter Cooper](https://twitter.com/cooperx86) and [Glenn Goodrich](https://twitter.com/ruprict). Published by [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/). [Change your email](https://rubyweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*) or [Stop getting this newsletter.](https://rubyweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*) ยฉ Cooper Press Ltd ยท Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Louth, LN11 0LS, United Kingdom Other weekly newsletters we publish include [Postgres Weekly](https://postgresweekly.com/), [React Status](https://react.statuscode.com/), [Frontend Focus](https://frontendfoc.us/), and [JavaScript Weekly](https://javascriptweekly.com/).