sorry to ask, but who uses SML nowadays and for what do they use it? (I know about it's descendants or languages influenced/inspired by it, like OCaml, F# and the less related Haskell, but nothing hits the news about SML projects.)
Usage of SML results in very short, readable and efficient programs, so I wonder why there is only so little industry adoption.
edit: or OCaml, or F#.
Harper has strong opinions, but he has a few points. Haskell may be great, but one should be aware that it is not an improvement on SML in each and every respect. For example, SML has a much better module system than Haskell.
It was actually surprising (and somewhat annoying) that Twelf is written in SML.
at least when it comes to syntax mythryl might someday provide an option. its basically SML/NJ with a c-like syntax and multithreading support. still very much in development but looks promising: mythryl.org
that said Haskell certainly seems to be the winner of the current functional language trend.
...the only times I heard people bitching about syntax to the point of staying away from a language for it was either about Lisps ("undistinquishable paren soup") or about Python's significant indentation and lack of multiline lambada. MLs have a pretty familiar math-like syntax and apart from some operators seems "normal looking" even for Java and C programmers.