Hardburn got it, and perrin and others had great ideas. Thanks.

Yes, my motiviation in asking this question is that if it becomes "common knowledge" among the IT managers of the largest companies that Java is faster than Perl, then teh days of Perl programmers are numbered. I don't want that because I like programming in Perl. This is almost a matter of marketing, or of politics: If I want to work in Perl, I can't let insane ideas like that be perpetuated.

Perkl hackers have to remember that a lot of the world - I'd dare say most of it - is, as someone put it, terribly ignorant of Perl. Up to us to change that or die out as larger communities, and programs with big-buck backing, try to climb to the top by pushing others down.