In case anyone else is interested in C-replacement type languages, I've been collecting a list:

  ATS: http://www.ats-lang.org/\n  BitC (seems to be dead): http://www.bitc-lang.org/index.html\n  Tart: https://code.google.com/p/tart/\n  Deca: https://code.google.com/p/decac/\n  Cyclone: http://cyclone.thelanguage.org/wiki/Why%20Cyclone/\n  Nimrod: http://nimrod-code.org/\n  Habit (Haskell adapted for systems programming): http://hasp.cs.pdx.edu/\n

We indeed have a similar list. Habit had slipped from my memory. I really wish Cyclone gets resurrected. There was quite a bit of discussion on HN when its closure(no pun intended) was announced. You may like digging into Felix.

Apart from this family the other I have been window-shopping on is the high performance/productivity family, consisting of the likes X10, Chapel and Fortress. Thanks to Oracle, Fortress is now abandonware.

Off late I have been quite disappointed by this trend in HN to be very hostile to things that I would consider to be the very distinguishing traits of a Hacker. Now it seems some people here compete to jump over the other to complain against things that encourage/facilitate or are meant for tweaking, learning, exploring and breaking: all things that I consider the very essence of hacking. Case in point, recent discussion on Gentoo.

The behavior reminds me of a bunch of desperate and wannabe Pink Floyd fans we had in college, who would jump to rally the crowd to disco to the opening strains of Another Brick in the Wall, much to our bewilderment but apparently to look cool.

There is always Java, if you are happy with it, stay happy with it.

I've actually never programmed in Java (just a little Clojure). I'm hoping to take a class in it this fall.

Felix is on my big list of interesting languages, but I didn't really think of it in the same category as these. I'm sort of aiming for something better than C when I get around to writing an OS kernel, you know, "someday".