While it's true in 2004 there was still a Numeric/numarray schism, at the time I was using Pyrex (which soon evolved into Cython) to have a gradually strongly t

While it's true in 2004 there was still a Numeric/numarray schism, at the time I was using Pyrex (which soon evolved into Cython) to have a gradually strongly typed Python-like thing cross-compatible with the rest of the ecosystem. That made it quite easy to write code which ran circles around R performance-wise without leaving the Python syntax domain and with a very simple FFI to call C to boot. I even had a tiny "pycc" script to create "executables" instead of "importable modules". Yes, those executables did depend on the installed base of Python stuff. These days, Nim is a better Cython but with less dynamic temptations and more powerful metaprogramming (and, yes, a much smaller ecosystem..maybe not that much smaller than Python in the late 90s, though). { Not that this is all Nim is...It's actually a really good everything-language that's tricky to summarize in just a few words. }