h = {"one"=>1, "two"=>2, "three"=>3 }
h["four"] = 4
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Then again in most Ruby code it would be more idiomatic to use symbols instead of strings as the keys so it would come out as:

h = {:one=>1, :two=>2, :three=>3 }
h[:four] = 4
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which rolls off the fingers quite nicely in my opinion.

You can tell perl was written by a linguist -- there's more interest in making the language expressive, with natural shortcuts, rather than "pure."

Then why do I end up typing less when I use Ruby? :-)

Some things are shorter in Ruby than Perl. Some things are shorter in Perl than in Ruby. I certainly don't find Ruby more verbose than Perl. The opposite if anything.

Being able to convert input strings to numbers instantly is another nice shortcut. "Everything's an object" gets in the way of that in ruby.

It's not the everything-is-an-object bit of Ruby that gets in the way. Everything is an object in Perl 6 and it keeps the auto-conversion between numbers and strings.

It's a design decision on how those objects behave. For me it's six of one and half dozen of the other - neither option makes a huge difference to the way I code.

The worst thing is the complete lack of a protective mode like "use strict;" as I discussed here. Writing in ruby feels unsafe to me.

I have to admit that I too thought that this would be a problem, but I've found this a complete non-issue when using Ruby.