I just came across this great new language for the Java VM, Clojure. It is like somebody read my mind about how a modern programming language should be, melted the vague ideas there into a detailed specification, put a lot of other goodies like STM in there, and finally implemented it!
I recommend the talk (slides + audio, about 2 hours) by Clojure inventor Rich Hickey here: http://lispnyc.org/wiki.clp?page=past-meetings There is also a slightly more recent talk, where the focus is mostly on concurrency: http://clojure.blip.tv/#819147 And there is lots of info on the closure page (although you probably should be a little bit familiar with LISP; a nice tutorial "from the ground up" is missing): closure.sourceforge.net Enjoy!, Steven
