Awesome. That's why I hope the System code is fairly fast, because compilation won't matter if it is still super slow. If y'all do a version on the JVM you get fast, but also a bloated dependency and then you're not much different than anything else with a JVM backend (Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Perl6, PicoLisp...etc). I really am excited by Red btw. Hopefully performance can be a thing at some point before 1.0. The Perl6 people released their 6.0c (basically 1.0) where the language is mostly frozen, and are now spending 90% of development time on optimizations (honestly I pulled that number out of my butt, but the ratio is in that favor) because it is so slow for most things currently. I'm not sure if that was smart as now people are thinking"I waited 15 years for this?". Overall another great language I'd happily throw away Python for, but it has some work to do before I can really use it. I hope Red doesn't fall into the same trap.

You might also want to look at ren-C (https://github.com/metaeducation/ren-c), a fork of the open sourced Rebol 3 (which isn't an active repo). It can be build with an embedded TCC so you can write C in-line for functions where you need a speed boost.

One of the nice things about Red is the low barrier of entry, for experimenting and getting a taste. If you can drop an EXE somewhere, you can run it and try things. If you can run "red -c ..." you can compile and include Red/System code.