[_a_a_a_]

Syntax really is so utterly trivial. In my personal project I went for C# instead of Scala. C#'s syntax is more familiar to most people, but the functional programming facilities (essentially copied from Scala) are absolutely bloody awful compared to Scala. Anything a little bit complicated – just forget it.

Edit: The point I didn't make very clearly above was at the syntax is actually pretty much the same, the semantics due to type differences and limitations really screw things up.