[sph]

The sibling comment suggests Clojure, and last time I tried I lost all patience after having to deal with setting up Java, lein (it's been quite a while).

If you want the least amount of friction possible, install Racket and run DrRacket. Here's a tutorial: https://docs.racket-lang.org/quick/index.html and one to make web apps: https://docs.racket-lang.org/more/index.html

(I don't mean to disparage Clojure, I'm sure it's great, but a newbie needs something easy to get excited about, not having to mess with JDK and setting up Emacs)

[Qem]

I had the same experience. Spent over an hour trying to strap all the components into a working system just for it to trow error after error. So I gave up learning Clojure and instead went into Pharo. Self-contained environment trivial to set-up, same live environment typical of lisps, but approached from the Smalltalk side. I enjoy it.

[spdegabrielle]

and moving from Racket to Clojure is an easier step than straight to clojure.

[shrimp_emoji]

Clojure sucks.

Go with Lisp instead. Or OCaml. Both are purer and leaner than the JVM-addled morass that is Clojure.