> 1) Lisp/Scheme > 2) Erlang > 3) Smalltalk > 4) C > Personally I think Smalltalk is not that interesting any longer. Many of its ideas are found in other languages, including Ruby. So if you want to learn a new language for the experience, I wouldn't go with Smalltalk. C is a pain, and I try to avoid as much as I can. If you have limited time, C would not be a good choice... you will spend time compiling and recompiling to fix some stupid pointer error... grrr... That said if you want CV skills, C is definitely very important. Lisp/Scheme and Erlang seem both pretty interesting. I've been meaning to try something from the Lisp family for some time but so far I have postponed the effort. The one I am considering getting into and that may interest you is Scala. It is useful in that it's very close to Java so you get good compilers and a strong community, plus you could use it for many jobs. It takes several ideas from Ruby (I find the syntax similar) which I find nice, but you can also have things like Actors (a la Erlang) via its powerful libraries. So personally I'd suggest: - Lisp/Scheme for the experience - Scala: a bit easier to approach and more useful while still exposing you to new ideas and worlds. Hope that helps. Diego