Compilation time is of course only one of many things to be taken into consideration when choosing a programming language. What always surprises me is how many people in commercial software engineering underestimate the consequences of slow compilation: it has a dramatic impact on productivity. A modern IDE for a language like C# or Java or what have you is like a spellchecker. Your compile-time errors are pointed out to you as you go along. Compare that to sitting around endlessly waiting for your C++ source file to compile. (C++ IDEs have just started to do a little bit of that "spellchecking," but it's not the same. And besides, you still have to compile to be able to run your program.)
