Ruby, hands down.  <div><br></div><div>- Strong OO language. I believe it was partially based on smalltalk.<div>- The Object model is very well done, every thing is a first-class object. <br></div><div>- Meta-programming is easy to do</div>
<div>- has good support in IDEs like eclipse and RubyMine</div><div>- the gem library is huge and comprehensive - might be very close to CPAN and Python&#39;s.</div><div>- concise, simple language with little in the way of &quot;grammar bling&quot; (but check out <a href="http://chris-schmitz.com/ruby-question-marks-and-exclamation-points/">http://chris-schmitz.com/ruby-question-marks-and-exclamation-points/</a>  )</div>
<div>- some good frameworks/tools/utilities out there like Ruby on Rails, Rake, scons, rdoc, etc</div><div>- good community support (<a href="http://rubyforge.org">rubyforge.org</a>)</div><div>- some oddball, niche things out there too</div>
<div>     - JRuby to write GUI applications. Runs on the JVM and has access to the JDK classes like Swing, AWT, etc.</div><div>     - Ruby over JRuby on Android <a href="http://gonegoogling.com/2010/08/30/get-ready-to-ditch-java-creating-android-applications-with-ruby-using-ruboto/">http://gonegoogling.com/2010/08/30/get-ready-to-ditch-java-creating-android-applications-with-ruby-using-ruboto/</a><br>
</div><div><br></div><div>Downside: the name. &quot;ruby&quot; means something to the outside world, expect google to bring you to jewelry stores, restaurants and Pokemon sites.</div><div><br></div><div>John</div><div><br>
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