Practically I'd say Interactive Development and Metaprogramming facilities would be the top two reasons. Interactive Development let you iterate ideas really f

Practically I'd say Interactive Development and Metaprogramming facilities would be the top two reasons. Interactive Development let you iterate ideas really fast, and allows an ease of exploration that's refreshing and can really help to learn how to use a library, an API, etc. Metaprogramming lets you add whatever functionality you want. It can help reduce boilerplate code down to a minimum. Those are the two features where I think it distinguishes itself.