One language vs. another on the Web...

Hi All:

I emerge from lurkdom once more to ask you to put your thinking caps on, 
and give me the best, non-religiously-based advice you can.

The situation is that I have a client whose programmers create just 
gorgeous Web sites using just a scripting language and their bare hands, 
with excellent hardware and IT support.  They have come to a fork in their 
road and have decided to "productize their concept" and create a sort of 
toolset for creating Webs to serve a particular vertical market.

This toolset will be -- huge and complicated.  The data model I am thinking 
of has many objects in it -- my concept currently relies on multiple 
inheritance but I think I can re-think this.  I am endeavoring to chart the 
course that leads them from one-of-Webs today to integrated, Web-based 
toolset tomorrow.

These guys have done wonders with scripts, and in a very short time 
frame.  My fear is that at some point, the scripting language will leave 
them high and dry -- inadequate debugger, no memory management, no linting, 
no typed variables, I just worry about these things.

My prejudice is that they call all this scripting time a learning 
experience and convert their scripts into a real, grown-up, compiled 
language -- Java or C++.  They are not opposed to this, but then I could be 
wrong.

So my questions to you, and please let's not be too theoretical here, are:

1.  Are my fears about scripting languages vs. "real" programming languages 
justified?
2.  We all agree that developing using a real language will take additional 
time.  Are "real" programming languages worth the overhead?
3.  If so, are we stuck with Java?  (Not my favorite language; I LIKE 
pointers.)  Can C++ be cajoled into Web-awareness fairly easily?  Are there 
toolsets for Web-enabling C++ that will save us time?
4.  We want this toolset to install and run on most platforms most of the 
time pretty much out of the box.  I don't care if it works in a browser or 
not, but my assumption is that making it work in a browser will ease the 
platform-independence problem.  What do you think?

Well, guess that's a start.

Thanks in advance for any advice you have to offer.

--Emily

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