Meta-programming is meta-programming, whether your language makes it easier to use or not doesn't change what it is. Not really. What Rubyists call "meta-progr

Meta-programming is meta-programming, whether your language makes it easier to use or not doesn't change what it is. Not really. What Rubyists call "meta-programming" is not what Lispers call "meta-programming." Things like mutating already-existing classes and asking an object what methods it has do not belong in the same category as syntactic abstraction (except maybe if you're programming in Kernel). That they have both been labeled "meta-programming" by their respective practitioners is just a historic accident.