One thing this guy doesn't mention, that I would think relevant to the discussion: Every language currently used by more than 4 people has a notion of FFI via

One thing this guy doesn't mention, that I would think relevant to the discussion: Every language currently used by more than 4 people has a notion of FFI via C. This is nice as it allows for the old "profile it and write the slow bits in C" type programming. I particularly like that style of programming, because in the end, you only need to do C style intensity for a small bit of code. Over time, the number of these small, but useful bits accumulates, and the result is a decent, bottom up style library, without the pain of having started in C. (It also helps avoid the cruft...).