I also feel that for 99% of applications, it doesn't matter. Like, yeah, there are a a few areas where hyper-optimized code in some kind of near-bare-metal lang

I also feel that for 99% of applications, it doesn't matter. Like, yeah, there are a a few areas where hyper-optimized code in some kind of near-bare-metal language is necessary. But most of the time, if you're writing code, the language itself isn't gonna be the deciding factor if something is performant enough for your application. Furthermore, by using a "fast" language, you're then trading your ability to quickly and cleanly implement code that's human readable suffers greatly.