[nkohari]

I don't think there is another great option if you want something like C# and you don't want to go down the Java road.

I adore C# as a language, and the CLR as a platform. If not for the Windows requirement, I would write quite a bit more C# than I do now. (See my other comments on why Mono isn't good enough as a platform-independent option.)

Let's be honest, JavaScript is a goofy language with all sorts of ugly parts, but it's surging in popularity because of the power of the platforms on which it's used (browsers and Node.js).

Lua is another language which I've taken a liking to recently. It has a beautiful, clean, simple syntax -- it's basically like dynamic C -- but its standard library is horribly weak. That's why I think it's relegated to embedding.

The .NET standard library is amazingly powerful, but the only "real" implementation of it requires Windows. My point is: it's not enough to be a good language, you need strong platform support.