Back when I was in the university (90's), Lisp, Prolog and Caml Light (OCaml's percursor) were forbidden to be chosen in compiler design classes, although we used them a lot in other classes.
The reasoning for the rule, was that they made our compiler assignments too easy.
On my case, we ended up using the recently introduced Java with JavaCC and NASM macros for the generated bytecode.
Nowadays I would only use something like C++ for the runtime library, or reuse of existing tools, e.g. LLVM.
That's so funny. More support for my recommendation. Since you mentioned it, my main recommendation today if someone wants to get somewhere is to use Ocaml but target LLVM. I'd like to see LLVM re-implemented in Ocaml and parallel developed. Doubt that will happen but using Ocaml to generate LLVM code seems quite doable.
The reasoning for the rule, was that they made our compiler assignments too easy.
On my case, we ended up using the recently introduced Java with JavaCC and NASM macros for the generated bytecode.
Nowadays I would only use something like C++ for the runtime library, or reuse of existing tools, e.g. LLVM.