To be fair, the current implement of Ruby (1.8x) is slow because it does not compile source code to byte code and run in vm, which will be available in next version (2.0?). Python, on other hand, already use this for a long time.

So, just stick to it and wait if you like the beauty keyword "end" and dislike white space vs tab war.

Greate article.

But I have the impression that PG means "to start starup is to launch a web application". right?

Not necessarily, but building a web app turns out to be a good way to build a product. He wrote about some advantages of doing so here- http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html