Maybe the two-language problem is not a problem after all. I've been coming around to the idea of writing the core algorithms in a fast language with a lot of features around correctness, and the rest in whatever language is most productive. Learning another language isn't so bad as long as it's not an utter beast like C++.
Ideal if you can swing it. One of my professors used to prototype in Python for development speed and then re-implement in C++ for runtime speed. You get the best of both worlds in a sense.
