Rails 1.1 and Ruby 1.83 don't mix 4
Ruby 1.83 was only available for a short while. 1.84 followed quickly to fix some bugs that were introduced in 1.83.
Rails 1.1 won’t run with 1.83 at all (you’ll get an error message). Ruby 1.82 and 1.84 will work with Rails 1.1.
So if you have 1.83, upgrade to 1.84 before you use Rails 1.1 (whenever it’s released) or before you decide to use “edge Rails” (i.e. “rake freeze_edge” to get the latest from the Rails trunk).
And let’s hope 1.1 sees the light of day soon. Personally I would call it 1.5, because there are so many important new features. For me, .RJS scripts and the :through parameter on has_many are the biggest features for me so far. I already can’t imagine building a website without them.
Hey, if you’re using the edge, what 1.1 features can you already not live without? I’d like to know.
Keep in mind that Ruby (and Rails) follow a different version numbering than we're used to seeing from Microsoft. Odd-numbered releases are dev releases, even are stable releases. So, it's not surprising that two dev releases don't play well together.
As stated above the 1.8.3 version is a dev version and not to be expected bug-free and stable.
On top of that it does state at the Rails blog that its recommended you upgrade from 1.8.2 to 1.8.4.
Kent - thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know that about Ruby version numbers.
It's the middle number that's even/odd to denote stable/development.
So 1.6.x were stable releases, 1.7.x were development releases, 1.8.x are stable, 1.9.x is development.
1.8.2, 1.8.3 and 1.8.4 are all "stable" releases, it's just that 1.8.3 was a bit of a 'paper-bag release' (as Linus would put it).