C++ is a poor counter-example, and I hope not many other people think I'm recommending C++ because it's the last language I would ever recommend. C++ doesn't a

C++ is a poor counter-example, and I hope not many other people think I'm recommending C++ because it's the last language I would ever recommend. C++ doesn't allow the sort of syntactic abstraction needed for a good multi-paradigm language. The Lisp family of languages is a good example of multi-paradigm programming languages done well. I also don't like this OOP vs. FP dichotomy. There are other useful paradigms, and yet more that need to be invented! I love functional programming, but I also want to be able to do things like implement low-level imperative primitives to use for higher-level functional APIs (a classic example being a 'memoize' function), or to use generic procedures or CLOS-like OOP when it is useful.