How does the compiler fare as the size of the code increases?
It depends on the benchmark, on what is being tested and against which framework it is being tested. For example, you can look at some benchmarks run by the Debian group: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=csharp&lang2=java The above URL looks at Mono vs Java, but you can pick and see Mono vs other frameworks/languages (notice that the one test where we are slower has been fixed, and we are now 20 times faster). The Charles University in Prague also tracks the progress here: http://dsrg.mff.cuni.cz/projects/mono/index.