Closure was written in 2008. This rationale document is interesting because it promotes VMs as the way of the future. It is interesting to note that since 2008 the industry has gravitated much more back toward compiled systems.
I see JS/TS going stronger than ever, Java and .NET still very strong and growing, Python again stronger than ever, WASM on the rise.
What's on the "compiled" side, apart from probably Rust making headlines on HN? What are the major products or services written in Rust? What are the unicorns with Rust secret sauce?
C/C++ is still strong, but is it expanding? Is Go even in the "compiled" camp?
When was the last time you saw an interpreted language as a new language come out in the last few years?
For the immediate, REPL-based development flow, a VM is a great host platform.
"Memory and other resource management" Can people really claim they manage memory and resources with a low-level language when their 30-line YML configured cluster reallocates whole machines at a time?