Performance is not the only reason to choose a language. Suitability to the particular project, availability of useful libraries, developer productivity, team m

Performance is not the only reason to choose a language. Suitability to the particular project, availability of useful libraries, developer productivity, team members' existing skillset, health of the language's community, speed of change in the language, integration of the language with tools already in use, ease of learning for new team members. In my experience as a sysadmin running hundreds of different applications written in a wide variety of languages over the years, I've seen some of the worst performing apps written in the "fast" languages you mention, and some of the best performing written in Ruby and Python. Of course, it can go the other way as well. My point is that the quality of the code has as much to do with "speed" as the language chosen. And I could go on and on about maintainability, ease of refactoring, and more. But I think you probably get the point. If you're curious about why people like Python, the best way to understand it is to learn it yourself. There are lots of free tutorials online and if you are already a skilled OO programmer, you should have no trouble picking it up. Spend a few weeks investigating it, and you might find that you prefer it, too!