<a href="http://www.macruby.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.macruby.org/</a> -- Apple's supporting an OSS project to use LLVM for real compilation, getting Ruby within spitting distance of Objective-C.<p>Of course, the fact that it's tied to the Objective-C runtime means it's not portable as-is, but at least it's a proof that Ruby need not be slow.