50x? That would surprise me, though I'm no expert in Ruby or Go. The problem with writing things in C or C++ is in the time it takes you to finish the first w

50x? That would surprise me, though I'm no expert in Ruby or Go. The problem with writing things in C or C++ is in the time it takes you to finish the first working cut of a nontrivial program you could have done the same thing in Java and finished four or five tuning cycles. If you stop there the Java will most likely be faster. How often do you get to write, say, a driver or a utility where "fast enough" won't do and there is enough of a business case to wring out those last few cycles?