[shmolyneaux]

Instant startup times are really nice. You definitely notice the difference. It also means that you can be a bit lazier when creating wrappers around those tools (running 1000's of times isn't a problem when the startup is 1ms, but would be a problem with 40ms of startup time).

Distribution can also be a lot easier if you don't need to care about the user having a specific version of Python or specific packages available.

[rixed]

What makes python very slow start up has little to do with the GC though. Actually, a GC program for a short-lived program such as most CLI tools can be the fastest option since you could disable the GC and let the OS dealloc all memory at exit.

[nmilo]

Fair. Python was probably a bad example. I think we need more languages like Go because even with its downsides, for projects that don’t need explicit memory control I’m picking it over rust and zig every time