I definitely agree that the most popular languages, tools, frameworks, paradigms, etc. are by definition not the best. These are popular because they're used by

I definitely agree that the most popular languages, tools, frameworks, paradigms, etc. are by definition not the best. These are popular because they're used by average programmers. They get the job done, though not in the best way, and are popular because of that (see for example Javascript). I found that Clojure (my first Lisp) was the easiest language to pick up that I've ever learned. Partly, that's because I've been doing this a long time, but I also think it speaks volumes to the simplicity of Lisps and Clojure in particular. I have no doubt that I could teach it to programmers and non-programmers alike rather quickly and I really wish it was at least studied, if not used, more so that people would have more experience with functional concepts. Even just a week or two of studying it is quite beneficial and a good contrast to typical OO languages.