[jamesfinlayson]

I don't disagree but there is less to the base language than there is Ruby and Python (though all three languages continue to add new stuff). Even looking at the primitive types - JavaScript has three, Python has four, Ruby has... classes, but probably more base types.

[vidarh]

MRI has more primitives of sort, but they're an implementation detail. Ruby itself conceptually only have objects.

MRI however implements some of them (integers, floats, symbols, true, false, nil, I might have forgotten one or two) using type tagged values instead of pointers to objects.

Type-tagging is easier to make fast for a highly gc'd dynamic language, as it reduces gc pressure substantially to not have to allocate lots of small objects without massive amounts of complex optimisations.