I really enjoyed learning and toying around with Smalltalk and Scheme. What killed it for me was that for all the fun abstractions, they were so isolated in the

I really enjoyed learning and toying around with Smalltalk and Scheme. What killed it for me was that for all the fun abstractions, they were so isolated in their own environment and disconnected from the operating system that it was not apparent how you would use them for anything real. Processing files, connecting to databases and other network resources, and interacting with the user are core practical services that need to be front and center to get new users to connect to your language, but if those elements are ghettoized into awkward libraries that don't work as elegantly as the abstract parts of the language then you aren't going to get traction, except for very specialized purposes.