F#/OCaml may not have a small total surface area (I'm not that deep in it), but you can do a whole lot knowing basic constructions. If you haven't used a funct

F#/OCaml may not have a small total surface area (I'm not that deep in it), but you can do a whole lot knowing basic constructions. If you haven't used a functional language there's an alternative approach without the cognitive overhead of thinking about statements executing in time (most of the time). For a non-static typed example, Elixir (but that usually also brings in Phoenix framework). Zig is another interesting one for different reasons.