The thing is that languages like C++ or Rust has the potential to become something even slower than Python if you don’t know what you’re doing. For example, (th

The thing is that languages like C++ or Rust has the potential to become something even slower than Python if you don’t know what you’re doing. For example, (the example is C++ but you can say the same thing about Rust): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9378500/why-is-splitting-a-string-slower-in-c-than-python https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9378500/why-is-splitting... Same with smart pointers: Languages like Java and C# have highly tuned garbage collectors that can be faster than reference counting in most situations. The rationale mostly deployed for using RC isn’t simply just raw performance (it can be slower because of the refcount read/write for every dereference), but predictable performance (you don’t need to worry about GC lag spikes, which is important for real-time applications. But even that advantage seems to be disputed.)