It's all a matter of opinion, but I argue that those are not what make Ruby expressive. What makes Ruby expressive to me is that it relies more heavily on Engl

It's all a matter of opinion, but I argue that those are not what make Ruby expressive. What makes Ruby expressive to me is that it relies more heavily on English language than other languages that make heavy use of symbols and overly concise naming conventions. The symbols it does use (and I don't mean the Symbol class) get out of the way when you don't need them, meaning you can often get away not using curlies or parens, which may result in code that is easier for the human eye to parse (w/ syntax highlighting) and makes it simple to write DSL-like code and APIs without going down the full metaprogramming rabbit hole. Languages that are more C-derived don't have such affordances. Conveniences for creating ranges, calculating time, having array/enumerable operators, etc., are all highly beneficial. Ruby stands out in those ways without things like metaprogramming. It's the parts that get out of the way that are great, whilst metaprogramming can easily end up interfering with anyone who didn't write it. There are certain exceptions, but they are usually well tested libraries that get a lot of time and attention. The metaprogrammed DSL one guy wrote, who left the company before you showed up, can have flaws that take hours to flesh out.