Thanks for the post, and I completely agree. However, there is one thing about Ruby that could have been better, considering Ruby as a didactic language: TMTOWT

Thanks for the post, and I completely agree. However, there is one thing about Ruby that could have been better, considering Ruby as a didactic language: TMTOWTDI (more than one way to do stuff) concept which Ruby borrowed from Perl: although it arguably helps with "the principle of the least surprise", I find it confusing when it comes to learning: multiple names for the same methods, {/} and begin/end block syntax, completely superfluous for keyword first come to mind, and even optional parantheses for method calls could be confusing, especially when they collide with operator priority. Slightly unusual syntax, comparing to the mainstream languages, shouldn't worry anyone, since 1) it's really not that different (we're a bit spoiled there, as languages are lately crafted to mimick each other as much as possible - to facilitate "brain drain" from rivaling camps) 2) the aim is not to "learn to make money by programming", but to learn to code 3) opinions here are highly biased, because we already learnt programming our way.