Add a quick writeup about the JavaOne 2014 script bowl

_posts/2014-11-02-javaone-jruby-demos.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "JRuby demos from the JavaOne Script Bowl 2014"
+tags:
+- ruby
+- jruby
+- javaone
+---
+
+This past October I was invited to represent [JRuby](http://jruby.org) in the
+JavaOne 2014 "Script Bowl." A panel where community members from various
+projects which implement scripting languages on top of the JVM pitch their
+language to a live studio audience. This year's panel consisted of a members
+from the Groovy, Clojure and Scala communities, and me representing JRuby of
+course.
+
+THe session consists of two segments, historically with one focusing on
+the capabilities of the language itself and the second segment focusing on the
+community built around the scripting language.
+
+Instead of choosing to create a presentation, I took the road less traveled and
+created a series of live coding demos to demonstrate the utility of JRuby.
+
+The collection of demos that I created can be found in this [demo
+repository](https://github.com/rtyler/javaone-jruby-demo). For all of my demos
+I used [Pry](http://pryrepl.org) as a live JRuby interpreter to load and
+execute Java and Ruby code on the fly, which I hope made for a compelling
+presentation.
+
+The following are worth mentioning here:
+
+### ascii table from jar
+
+In [this
+demo](https://github.com/rtyler/javaone-jruby-demo/blob/master/ascii-table-from-jar.rb)
+I had grabbed some random Java code from the internet and wrote some Ruby glue
+to make use of it. Copying and pasting this code into a running Pry session and
+you'll get a nice table drawn in your console.
+
+~~~
+[16] pry(main)> puts make_table(headers, mails)
++-----------------------------+--------------------------+
+|           Subject           |           From           |
++-----------------------------+--------------------------+
+|         NOT SPAM WE PROMISE | sirspamsalot@hotmail.com |
+| Important work related info |     yourboss@example.com |
+|       Don't forget the milk |         spouse@family.io |
++-----------------------------+--------------------------+
+=> nil
+[17] pry(main)>
+~~~
+
+### anonymous classes
+
+[This
+demo](https://github.com/rtyler/javaone-jruby-demo/blob/master/anonymous-classes.rb)
+demonstrates how JRuby merges the use of [anonymous
+classes](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/anonymousclasses.html)
+in Java with Ruby's concept of blocks. Instead of creating an anonymous class
+that implements the `Runnable` interface, we can just use pass a block of code
+to be executed inside of a `java.lang.Thread`.
+
+
+### "turtles"
+
+This might be [my favorite
+demo](https://github.com/rtyler/javaone-jruby-demo/tree/master/turtles) because
+it demonstrates one of the more compelling (to me) features of JRuby, it's
+embeddability. In the "turtles" demo, I've got an entirely embedded and
+separate Ruby runtime environment, nested within an already existing Ruby
+runtime.
+
+The result is that I can create isolated Ruby environments within the same JVM,
+which opens the door to all kinds of interesting sandboxing applications.
+
+~~~
+[44] pry(main)> require './turtles/first'
+=> true
+[45] pry(main)> puts "Our original JRuby has version: #{JavaOne::VERSION}".colorize(:magenta)
+Our original JRuby has version: 1
+=> nil
+[46] pry(main)> puts
+
+=> nil
+[47] pry(main)> # Now let's load a the same module with a different version inside the runtime environment
+[48] pry(main)> evaler.eval(runtime, "require './turtles/second'"); nil
+=> nil
+[49] pry(main)> evaler.eval(runtime, "puts \"Our embedded JRuby has version: \#{JavaOne::VERSION}\".colorize(:green)"); nil
+Our embedded JRuby has version: 2
+=> nil
+[50] pry(main)>
+~~~
+
+
+### jruby-gradle
+
+The final [demo that I
+gave](https://github.com/rtyler/javaone-jruby-demo/tree/master/jruby-gradle-example)
+is a little self-promiting, in that I demonstrated the capabilities of the
+[jruby-gradle](https://github.com/jruby-gradle) project. A project which allows
+you to use the [Gradle](http://gradle.org) tool for managing projects,
+obviating the need for Bundler, JBundler, Warbler and RVM.
+
+During the demo I showed the
+[build.gradle](https://github.com/rtyler/javaone-jruby-demo/blob/master/jruby-gradle-example/build.gradle)
+file which references a Ruby gem and demonstrated how to build a
+self-contained, self-executing `.jar` file with the tool:
+
+~~~
+% ./gradlew shadowJar
+~~~
+
+Then executed it:
+
+~~~
+% java -jar build/libs/jruby-gradle-example-all.jar
+REQUIRED RELATIVE
+Hello from JRuby built with Gradle!
+%
+~~~
+
+That is a jar file, running Java and Ruby code all from within the file, pretty
+spiffy if you ask me!
+
+
+----
+
+Predictably, JRuby didn't win the Script Bowl, unpredictably Clojure did. The
+event was enjoyable, but for me my favorite part was creating the demos and
+honing my pitch for JRuby, which I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to reuse in
+the future.
+
+