IW: Do you believe the traditional Microsoft-friendly languages such as Visual Basic or C# offer advantages over these dynamic languages?

JM: Well, they're kind of different beasts. C# is a strongly [typed] static language if you like. VB could be considered a dynamic language; it's always had dynamic aspects to it. [Dynamic languages are] most suited for quick, rapid application development, whereas the statically [typed] languages are for building larger systems with well-defined interfaces. So it really depends on using the right tool for the right job. I think it's unfair to compare a statically [typed] language to a dynamic language.

IW: I'm looking at a definition of dynamic programming languages on Wikipedia here. What would be your definition?

JM: A dynamic language is one that can resolve types and kind of compiles on the fly; in that way it's very dynamic. So, at runtime, the compiler does type-checking and syntax-checking as opposed to a static language, which is done at compile time, which is not at runtime.

IW: To what do you attribute the popularity of these new languages? Their advantages in Web development, perhaps?