[bgorman]

Type safety, expressiveness, consistency. Once you use an ML, it can feel like all other languages are stuck in the 70s.

[shpongled]

I really wish Standard ML had a bigger (I'd settle for active) community, a package system, and modern IDE support.

Rust feels like the closest thing to me in terms of overall practicality/ease of use.

[bmitc]

I feel all one really needs is a Lisp/Scheme and an ML. Imagine if software engineering had coalesced on these two!