[jwestbury]

It's both, really. Even if we limit this to dynamically-typed, interpreted languages, Python is far more maintainable that Ruby both because the language and the culture take a stance of "there is one correct way to do something." In many cases, you can do things multiple ways in Python, but the language design is intended to make one approach preferable for a specific problem.

Ruby is heavily influenced by Perl, with a focus on being enjoyable to write. And let me be clear: I loved writing Perl, back in the day. If I still used Perl, I'd still love writing it. But part of why Perl is so fun -- and why Ruby is fun! -- is that it's expressive and flexible, and you can do a lot of things you really shouldn't. This leads to people writing code that was fun to write, but will be difficult to maintain -- and the language's foundation rests on this concept, so the culture is (subtly?) encouraged to embrace it.