I am with you on Haskell. It counts on Freedom, Readability, Documentation System (including lhs2tex which will turn your "integrate f 0 a" into \Int_0^a{f dx}

I am with you on Haskell. It counts on Freedom, Readability, Documentation System (including lhs2tex which will turn your "integrate f 0 a" into \Int_0^a{f dx}), High-level vs low-level, Standard library (including hackage/cabal), Data structures, Module system, Calling syntax, Default arguments (currying), Multiple programming paradigms (there was a saying that Haskell is the best imperative language). It partially counts on most other points. Myself, I choose Haskell for my research project, as it was best language on (expressiveness times safety) scale. Strong type system certainly helps sweeping out errors.