I think garbage collection is an even better answer, because you don't pay a penalty when copying pointers. I hope someone does a good port of Python/Jython to

I think garbage collection is an even better answer, because you don't pay a penalty when copying pointers. I hope someone does a good port of Python/Jython to the Java 7 JVM - it seems the easiest way to get a good garbage collector (and JIT compiler).