Does it matter if it is a bare-bone systems language with no GC or automated memory management? Erlang and Elixir, a new language for the Erlang VM with a diff

Does it matter if it is a bare-bone systems language with no GC or automated memory management? Erlang and Elixir, a new language for the Erlang VM with a different syntax, are compiled languages with REPLs. I also think about Scala and others for the JVM, but I have a feeling you do not think of those as examples because of the VM or the lack of native code compilation. I could be wrong.