Ruby version review 2016

While upgrading ruby gem dependencies for gitdocs I decided that I would not upgrade activerecord to v5.x in order to keep support for Ruby v2.0. This allow gitdocs to work with the default ruby on most desktop operating systems.

The current state of Ruby versions are:

  • 2.3.1 and 2.2.5 are stable and supported
  • 2.1.10 is in security maintenance, EOL soon
  • 2.0.0 is EOL

Which suggests that dropping 2.0.0 support would be a good idea. However, gitdocs is a user facing desktop/laptop kind of program so what Ruby versions can I expect in that environment?

Operating System Ruby Version
Debian 8.6 "jessie" (stable) 2.1.5
Debian "sid" (unstable) 2.3.0
Fedora 24-23 2.4.8
OS X El Capitan 2.0.0
OS X Sierra 2.0.0
Windows with RubyInstaller 2.2.x (the suggested default)

(N.B.: I have included Windows here and gitdocs might run on Windows, but it has not been tested.)

Because of OSX I am going to hold off on dropping Ruby v2.0.0 support for now.