The Digital Press

Ruby’s core developers have merged ZJIT, a new just-in-time compiler designed to optimize Ruby code by using a more traditional compiler architecture, into the main Ruby implementation. ZJIT aims to improve performance and maintainability by compiling entire methods at once and leveraging historical type data.

Why it matters: ZJIT offers a more community-friendly, modular compiler that could enhance Ruby’s execution speed and optimization potential.

The big picture: Unlike YJIT, ZJIT uses a high-level intermediate representation and compiles whole methods, allowing more comprehensive optimizations.

The stakes: ZJIT is still early-stage and not production-ready; Ruby 3.5 will ship with both YJIT and ZJIT as the latter matures.

Commenters say: Users appreciate ZJIT’s approach to code reuse and modularity, expressing excitement about future performance gains and easier community contributions.