Even if GraalVM fixes startup times aren't JVM languages just too long-winded for scripting? Perl, Python and Ruby dominate the scripting world for a reason - standard libraries for file, dir and pathname manipulation written in a concise language. Scripting is a style of coding, not just a means to an end. It is here that dynamic languages excel. Clojure is the leanest of the JVMs but doesn't it still rely on Java for file, dir and pathname manipulation?

Ya, GraalVM fixes it. But it requires a compile step, so it's not as nice for scripts.

My favourite for scripting right now is Joker: https://github.com/candid82/joker

Joker is a Clojure dialect which is interpreted, thus it starts super fast (but runs slower, but fast enough for scripts). Its design is to be batteries included for all things scripting. So it's just a self contained executable with everything you need for scripting. It's implemented in Go.

I use it wherever I would have used bash or powershell prior.

There is also Babashka: https://github.com/borkdude/babashka which is a similar idea, it's an interpreted dialect of Clojure with fast start times designed for scripting. The difference with Joker is that it is newer and more experimental, and it is implemented in JVM Clojure, compiled with GraalVM and has no Windows support for now.

Anyways, I really recommend the use of Joker. Its awesome for scripting. I just put its binary in all my bin folders and script with it. It's great.

GraalVM does in fact fix that. There's a (new-ish) project called babashka that lets you do some basic scripting for example: https://github.com/borkdude/babashka

> I don't really know what "differentiate" means [...]

Probably “set themselves apart from others”.