I think that it's fine technically

the ML family of languages have extensive static typing functionality that I like

but Rust has enough overlap in functionality and has greater uptake. (I say this not having spent enough time to really come up to speed on Rust myself.) A quarter century back, ocaml was the language that I was most impressed with for strong static typing functionality. In 2026, I think I'd probably look at Rust and only go to ocaml if Rust doesn't suit your needs.

As to whether it can be a "daily driver"...I mean, you can use any language daily. I do think that it's hard to appreciate how helpful it is to have all the examples and library support and tools until you move from a popular language to a less-used one and suddenly discover that you want something that isn't there.

So can you use it? Sure. Is it the first option I'd recommend to someone who

and I assume that this is why you're looking at it, if your alternative is Python

wants to move to a statically-typed language? No. Is it a terrible choice? No, it'd also be a long way from the bottom of the list that I'd recommend.