One can either say Java is faster, or Perl is faster, but you have to give sound reasoning. If the conclusion is just based on one or two projects, then it is absolutely immature and illogical.

Most of the time, performance is not really determined by the language, although this might be true for single modules, but not the entire system. Language is generally speaking not responsible for the performance of the system (at least not a main component of the cost). What really should be responsible in most of the case, is the architecture of the application.

You did an application with an old architecture in Perl, and now do it with Java but a new architecture, which one is faster? Obviously it should be the second one, unless the skill of your designers is way below average.

So those comments you mentioned in your original post are meaningless to me, to be frank. So don’t bother at all. There is no point to join the battle, as they are comparing apples with oranges.