SML is probably my favourite programming language, and ML for the Working Programmer is probably my favourite programming book. It is indeed sad to think that

SML is probably my favourite programming language, and ML for the Working Programmer is probably my favourite programming book. It is indeed sad to think that I'll probably never use it seriously or even meet another SML programmer in my life (I met one at university in a larger city once, but it seems unlikely to happen again where I am now). OCaml is good, though I personally dislike its complexity compared to SML ("Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." and all that). There are also remote OCaml jobs in the world, so it's not completely impossible I could do something like that in the future.