> what I want is a language that comes with something to produce independent executable files as part of its basic tooling
Worth noting that the Fman Build System (fbs)¹ gets you most of the way there with Python and Qt5, allowing you to "freeze" a PyQt5 application and automatically generate a Windows installer. I don't recall of the top of my head if there's a way to condense that into a single standalone executable, but it certainly produces a single folder by default (which you can stick anywhere, like any other "portable" Windows app).
I haven't used this in production yet, but testing it has been promising enough, and I'm using this for my next desktop development project.
Worth noting that the Fman Build System (fbs)¹ gets you most of the way there with Python and Qt5, allowing you to "freeze" a PyQt5 application and automatically generate a Windows installer. I don't recall of the top of my head if there's a way to condense that into a single standalone executable, but it certainly produces a single folder by default (which you can stick anywhere, like any other "portable" Windows app).
I haven't used this in production yet, but testing it has been promising enough, and I'm using this for my next desktop development project.
¹: https://build-system.fman.io/