Small Basic super slow ??

[litdev]

This led me to think of making SB on C++ to make it faster

The SB compiler is written directly in IL.  What makes it slow are the features it has like universal type - if it didn't have these simplifying features it could be faster, but wouldn't be Small Basic.  Not everything is about speed - writing good maintainable code is the most important.  Most compiled languages (C#, C++ and all the others have comparable execution speed), performance differences are in the programmer skill.