I'm defending their choice to move to Scala (a "niche" language) after running into performance problems with Ruby. I don't think it's a straw man to mention J

I'm defending their choice to move to Scala (a "niche" language) after running into performance problems with Ruby. I don't think it's a straw man to mention Java and C++ as representative of the non-niche languages that perform significantly better than Ruby. There are plenty of faster language platforms they can move to, but which ones offer a powerful and elegant language? As far as I know, you either pick a "niche" language that few developers know or you pick an old and clunky language like Java or C++. In this case, you have to weigh the ability to hire new people, which would be better for the more popular languages, against the ability to retain your existing Ruby developers, which is better with an elegant, powerful language.