> as well as idiomatically functional programming Intuitive as this may seem, it ends up being the opposite: you'll see more "functional-like" code in Ruby cod

> as well as idiomatically functional programming Intuitive as this may seem, it ends up being the opposite: you'll see more "functional-like" code in Ruby codebases. A simple think like Guido considering multi-line lambdas "a Rube Goldberg language feature" [1] and rejecting them was sort of a butterfly effect that pushed real-world ruby codebases away from functional programming. Same as the nice-looking block passing syntax pushed Ruby in the opposite direction! And makes Ruby DSLs easy as pie (though I find DSLs a bit against the "hacker spirit" - any tool that's less "general purposes" ends up "limiting your mind" - take Rails which is a giant "meta-DSL for web apps" imho). ...though I still recommend Python to wannabe "hackers" for the same reasons you said above, I find myself, as a "real-world hacker", enjoying Ruby more. [1] http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=147358 http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=147358