Whoops ^^ In comparison to java, THE things that yell out at me is:

- a single algorithm in perl can be far more terse than java can be because a lot of the syntax, java forces verbosity, which in the end CAN lead to more readable code.

- perl is very flexible, and easy to work with higher algorithms while remaining loose. it's hard to desccribe. so you get these things like mechanize.

- java is very rigid, you gain a LOT of flexibility via patterns of use

- java has type safety. It's really hard to not see when you missassign things beyond casting. IDE's such as eclipse and intellij make it harder to create these scenarios.

- java can be bit more OS agnostic than perl is. Example, all filename slashes are can be written as /. All gui's can be written using swing. There are bugs in the jvm implementations that cause quirks, that do get fixed over time. I think it's more fun than dealing w/ perl/tk. I can copy a tomcat installation around from a windows box to a unix box and not recompile a thing if i start up the jvm properly.

- java requires no c like compilation to extend, as they are written in java. java has the wretched classpath, when mixed w/ a classloader, can be a small pain to deal with

- perl has constructs that are magnitudes easier than java will be, by design. $x[@index]=@values vs a java loop.

- the perl community seems to be more creative, where as the java community is more goal oriented. I'd argue thta the perl community is more about coding for the love of it first, and the java community more business oriented.

- java changes more frequently than java, but is more easy to install. perl is almost everywhere, more so than java, and does not change so often. I would attribute perl's quality there to being quite flexible to begin with. I'm not sure. Not looking for an argument :)