> If you run a search on google for The Great Programming Language Shootout it 
> shows performance graphs between a number of languages in a number of categories 
> including tight loops, number crunching, etc. 


How funny : 

Perl, Python, Ruby all next to eachother - same results:

http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/craps.shtml

 
(though this was 3 years ago)