This is my experience with java > 7. The JVM with default settings is pretty excellent these days (see JetBrains IDEs: they're MASSIVE but they run just as well

This is my experience with java > 7. The JVM with default settings is pretty excellent these days (see JetBrains IDEs: they're MASSIVE but they run just as well as any other native desktop app.) The issue as far as i see it is that the "enterprise" way of thinking that has and still does dominate the majority of development that results in java code is so bad that it starts to seem like its the language/runtime.