>...If, in order to "really" enter a programming culture, I need to both "be solving a significant real problem in the real world" and exercising "the freedom to change the language, the compiler, the OS or even the hardware design", then there are very few options for entering this culture indeed.

https://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines...

If you trust yosefk's judgement you might want to read his take on TCL: https://yosefk.com/blog/i-cant-believe-im-praising-tcl.html

"lovecraftian toolchain" is one of the greatest phrases I've ever heard and I use it all the time now to describe portions of the tech stack I'm exposed to at work.