Note:
$ julia --help-hidden
julia [switches] -- [programfile] [args...]
--compile={yes|no|all|min}Enable or disable JIT compiler, or request exhaustive compilation
I call julia -O0 -compile=min the “Python”-option. It’s some minimal compilation (and yes, Python has compilation too; its is minimal, to bytecode). Feel free to try, -compile=no while that’s going to far, you immediately get all kinds of strangeness.
So officially documented is “no” compilation, as an option, implying interpretation.
I can see your point, while you put them to a very high standard, higher than I guess any proprietary software and most open source.
Before we put in a disadvantages section, it’s good to know what’s already there to fix startup-slowness, or at least link to the (partial, for now) solution.