[untothebreach]

> Python's reflection and metaprogramming are roughly on par with Ruby's, their lack of use is more of a cultural artefact than a technical one.

+1 on everything you listed, but especially this. You _do_ see some examples of monkey-patching in Python, but at least in my very limited experience, it tends to be much less prevalent in Python than it does in Ruby. Any data to contradict this is welcome, however.

[csense]

This also might fall along the lines of "you usually don't want to do this, because anyone else who works on the codebase afterwards will hate you for it."

Monkey-patching also makes it harder to easily determine which names come from which source files, which is one of the strengths of Python code: Python's import system or explicitly using "self" make Python much superior to other languages.