1) Last time I tried it was reasonably fast for a dynamic language - somewhat slower than javascript (V8) but faster than python (cpython) to give you a ballpar

1) Last time I tried it was reasonably fast for a dynamic language - somewhat slower than javascript (V8) but faster than python (cpython) to give you a ballpark If this is true, then it's much slower than LuaJIT, Lisp (SBCL) and probably Chez Scheme: Three great dynamic programming languages worth checking out, by the way.