Coming from dynamic languages I find Standard ML to offer a much more methodical approach to designing software. The view that SML brings is that your program i

Coming from dynamic languages I find Standard ML to offer a much more methodical approach to designing software. The view that SML brings is that your program is a language of its own and the Algebraic Data Types you define are your program's syntax. I find the type system to be easy to work with (unlike C, C++, Java) and I'm finally seeing the virtues of a static typed language. Also, having to specify types while defining functions forces me to think more in a good way. It's a far more methodical approach than I'm used to in Ruby for example.