I think this applies to compilers, not virtual machines... I've never heard of a Perl interpreter written in Perl, the same to Python and Ruby.
Actually, there have been implementations of both Perl and Ruby in ... <ta-da> Java.
Of course, Python has been implemented in (1) C (CPython) (2) Java (Jython) and, yes, Python (the PyPy project).
And about Ada and Ocaml (?)... how many programmers actually know how to program well in those languages? C/C++ has a lot larger developer base, since a large part (most?) of open source softwares still use it (ok, 'larger developer base' is not an argument... if it was, we would code the JVM in VB :P)
I think I've already mentioned that Ada and OCaml didn't have a large developer base. Well, actually, Ada does, but their are mostly in defense and real-time applications, many are nearing retirement age, and they might not be interested in our project. OCaml is new to folks in the US, although my understanding is that it is much better known in France and is used in the telecommunications industry.
Of course, I'm not really suggesting that we use Ada or OCaml. However, those languages have open-source/free implementations that are very safe(unlike C and C++) yet produce fast code. Ada in particular has very good threading support.
My real point is that we shouldn't take a step backwards. Yes, there is a large base of C and C++ programmers. However there is also a large (possibly larger) base of Java programmers, and there is no reason why we couldn't implement Harmony using the Java programming language. Major systems have been developed in garbage-collected languages before. Google? (Python). ViaWeb? (Common LISP--now Yahoo! Store). I won't even mention all the major projects being programmed in Java.
Be that as it may, I assume that we will have a project lead who will tell us where to go and what to do, and I know both C and C++. If he says "we are using toolkit X", I'll do it, because I believe in this project. (I expect we would use a restricted subset of C++ anyway due to cross-platform issues).
So where's the general? I need my marching orders, darn it.
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