While I would expect the answer to almost certainly be "yes", theory and practice do not always match up. The "compiled vs interpreted" qualification was meant

While I would expect the answer to almost certainly be "yes", theory and practice do not always match up. The "compiled vs interpreted" qualification was meant to preempt responses along the lines of "Of course it's faster -- it's compiled!" I'm curious -- were the question simply "Is it faster?" how would you have responded?