I notice no mentions of Ruby yet, and I wonder if this discussion is pretty much impossible to have in the Ruby world, given Ruby is solely an object oriented language, even if you try to use it procedurally. Not writing classes would be against so many Ruby conventions and accepted style that it's a non-topic?

Or is it that classes in Python specifically aren't that much of a win over the language's implementation of other paradigms? I sure haven't hit into any problems using classes or objects in Ruby, even when sometimes the use feels a little contrived to begin with, but.. I also have no choice :-) (maybe Rubyists have a Stockholm Syndrome with OO ;-))