> Won't using a high-level language incur an omnipresent speed slump?
Not sure that is true. Just look at pypy(http://pypy.org/) which claims that run-time optimizations in the interpreted interpreter outperforms the C interpreter, and quite significantly in many cases. So I don't think it's true that high-level languages are always slower. It has a lot to do with the optimizations you can do at run-time. There is also an interesting paper on developing an OS based on run-time code synthesis for optimizing performance (http://valerieaurora.org/synthesis/SynthesisOS/). The major drawback of languages like C is that it can only optimize things at compile-time. I think as projects get larger and we move towards parallel structures and algorithms the need for languages that support run-time optimizations will be greeter.
Not sure that is true. Just look at pypy(http://pypy.org/) which claims that run-time optimizations in the interpreted interpreter outperforms the C interpreter, and quite significantly in many cases. So I don't think it's true that high-level languages are always slower. It has a lot to do with the optimizations you can do at run-time. There is also an interesting paper on developing an OS based on run-time code synthesis for optimizing performance (http://valerieaurora.org/synthesis/SynthesisOS/). The major drawback of languages like C is that it can only optimize things at compile-time. I think as projects get larger and we move towards parallel structures and algorithms the need for languages that support run-time optimizations will be greeter.