Compiled languages are faster in general because they don't need to run through any intermediate interpreter. Instead of finding out what needs to be done and then doing it, at run time the program just does what needs to be done.
In an interpreted language, the program needs to first figure out what needs to be done (be interpreted), then it can go and do it. The sorts of optimizations that this allows can reduce the interpretation overhead, but I can't think of a practical and useful way it can turn that overhead around into an advantage.
A lot of people are arguing about performance.
Assuming good implementation:
Compiled languages are faster in general because they don't need to run through any intermediate interpreter. Instead of finding out what needs to be done and then doing it, at run time the program just does what needs to be done.
In an interpreted language, the program needs to first figure out what needs to be done (be interpreted), then it can go and do it. The sorts of optimizations that this allows can reduce the interpretation overhead, but I can't think of a practical and useful way it can turn that overhead around into an advantage.
All that being said, I don't really care if my CMake script takes a bit long to run. I won't be running it every day.