I'm starting a new project and don't know which language to use. My 'must have' requirements are: Be able to run on Windows/LinuxMacOs natively (native executable) - user should be able to just run the exe (when on Windows for example) and see the results. No runtimes/interpreters (no jvm, clr, etc) - one file download should be enough to run the application. Full unicode support. Be able to manipulate OS threads (create them, run multiple tasks in parallel on multi-core CPUs, etc). Be reasonably fast (Python level performance and better). To have some kind of standard library that does low-level, mundane tasks. Not very niche and have some community behind it to be able to ask questions. My 'nice to have' requirements are: Language should be functional It should have good string manipulation capabilities (not necessarily regex) Not extremely hard to learn I'm thinking about Haskell now but keeping in mind OCaml as well. Please advice if my choice is correct.