"Interpreted language" is an imprecise term. A language is a language whether implemented in a compiler, an interpreter, or a REPL that includes a compile step.

"Interpreted language" is an imprecise term. A language is a language whether implemented in a compiler, an interpreter, or a REPL that includes a compile step. JavaScript is faster than Go in some benchmarks, and slower in others. In benchmarks where it's much slower, the reason isn't that JavaScript interpreters exist. The reason is design decisions in the JavaScript language that make optimization difficult. http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/compare.php?lang=v8&lang2=go http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/compare.php?lang... Someone familiar with the V8 compiler might correct me, but I suspect that the binary tree program is slowed by JavaScript object-property access always being a dictionary lookup. I suspect that fasta and reverse-complement are slowed by JavaScript's one-type numeric tower ... everything's a float.