Magpie Guide: Welcome. Since we're on the topic of niche languages: Magpie is yet another language for the JVM. This one looks a bit like a mix of Scala and Ruby, but the concepts are quite different. Particularly nice is multidispatch - generic functions that choose the appropriate version based on all their parameters and their types. Reminds me a bit of CLOS in that aspect. Additionally, there are full closures and functions, and blocks are first-class objects in the system. Additionally, there is an approach to metaprogramming with quotations, although I still consider the Lisp approach unbeaten (simply because in Lisp the structures of the parse tree correspond 1:1 to the actual syntax and the lists as internal representation, while in languages with Algol-like syntax the whole thing is much more indirect). What I personally also find pleasant: Magpie is very text-oriented, not so heavily reliant on special characters. It reads more pleasantly to me.