Dynamic languages - which one should I choose?

Question

Dynamic languages are on the rise and there are plenty of them: e.g. Ruby, Groovy, Jython, Scala (static, but has the look and feel of a dynamic language) etc etc. My background is in Java SE and EE programming and I want to extend my knowledge into one of these dynamic languages to be better prepared for the future.

But which dynamic language should I focus on learning and why? Which of these will be the preferred language in the near future?

Answer 1

Learning Ruby or Python (and Scala to a lesser extent) means you'll have very transferrable skills - you could use the Java version, the native version or the .NET version (IronRuby/IronPython). Groovy is nice but JVM-specific.

Being "better prepared for the future" is tricky unless you envisage specific scenarios. What kind of thing do you want to work on? Do you have a project which you could usefully implement in a dynamic language? Is it small enough to try on a couple of them, to get a feeling of how they differ?