> I would love to see a book as gentle and fun as _Crafting Interpreters_ but about making a static ML like language without starting with hardcore theory. (Bob

> I would love to see a book as gentle and fun as _Crafting Interpreters_ but about making a static ML like language without starting with hardcore theory. (Bob, if you're listening, please make a sequel!) I don't think an ML-like language is the best option. I would start with type-checking something simple like C or Pascal: no overloading, generics, type inference, anonymous functions. Just plain old subroutines and declared types on everything, arrays and structs as the only composite data structures. Then you could add implicit conversions, type inference for locals (not that hard), subtyping, target type inference for anonymous functions, generics and maybe overloads if you're brave enough.