The io module introduces ByteArray and ByteString via defineClass(). This adds both to the engine's global host objects. This prevents using const in the context of i/o.
~ > ringo -e "ByteArray();"
ReferenceError: "ByteArray" is not defined.
at <expr>:1
~ > ringo -e "const io = require('io'); console.log(ByteArray());"
[ByteArray 0]
I don't see a chance to fix this anyway, but leave this as an issue to discuss for the future. Maybe we find a non-radical solution to this problem.