> Syntax errors without detail are a product of the parsing technology: its a minor irritant and worst.

You may think so, but it infuriates me many times a day. This is the most basic thing which a compiler should be getting right, and yet they fail.

I agree with you on type inference errors, but my solution is to annotate function parameters, which avoids the most confusing problems.

I don't want to wrap my error handling code, or work around it with other libraries, I just want something usable out of the box. Languages need to be evaluated holistically, and the design of the standard library is a critical part of that, look at the C++ STL.

Yes, I meant module polymorphism. I much prefer the way that F# deals with Sets, Maps, etc.

I think Ocaml has had a good run, but it's starting to look dated, F# has really innovated, it's just a shame that it's tied to .NET.