I don't know if your reply was meant for me because you seem to be quoting this node? But I'll reply anyway:

I dunno, my experiences with Java were not as bad. Whenever I hear "Java is slow and bloated", I wonder how much of that is hard evidence (if I had the time right now I'd run a benchmark or two), and how much of that is a stereotype originating from the days Java was first introduced and it was slow and bloated. Nowadays, with JIT and Java having many of its library functions implemented in native code (kind of like Perl's XS), I really do wonder how true that still is. Java isn't the fastest language of course, but sometimes I feel that the "Java is slow because it runs on a VM" complaint is roughly on the same level as "Perl is slow because it's interpreted". Adding that it's possible to write bad programs in any language, and that Java is in more widespread use than Perl, then there will unfortunately be a larger number of bad programs written in Java ;-)

I don't mean to rip on your post in particular, I'm just giving my two cents because I'm seeing the "Java is slow" meme in several posts in this thread.