Just because it happens to have a slow compiler that obliges keeping the compiler separate from the VM doesn't mean it isn't a scripting language.

Actually I think most programmers would draw the line between scripting and "normal" languages at the separation of compiler and architecture specific machine code. The fact that Java code is compiled down to a particular, albeit portable, architecture -- the Java Runtime Environment -- puts it in a separate category from languages like Perl and Python. To flip your statement, just because a language runs on a virtual machine does not mean it's a scripting language.

So because perl has a speedy compiler and can invoke it during execution it is a scripting language while Java has a slow compiler and can't invoke it during execution and it isn't? I'd say that both cases are scripting languages - they both run on a VM and are interpreted. There's no fundamental distinction here that I can see.

I agree it's mushy territory, and will become more so with Perl 6 and its distinction between compiler and VM. But the difference between the languages is not just that Java keeps the two steps entirely separate, but also that the Java language is designed to achieve dynamic runtime behavior not through reliance upon a ready-to-hand compiler but on mechanisms like typecasting and classloading.

One might view Java (and Perl 6 when people start releasing bytecode versions of their software (and you know they will :) ) as residing in an intermediate category between C et al and Perl 5 et al. That's the argument made in this article.

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"The dead do not recognize context" -- Kai, Lexx