There are a LOT of variables in that performance equation. A lot of numerical analysis happens in Python, where speed is critical (see NumPy and SciPy). Web-bas

There are a LOT of variables in that performance equation. A lot of numerical analysis happens in Python, where speed is critical (see NumPy and SciPy). Web-based applications have so many potential bottlenecks that python rarely starts as the bottleneck and there are ways around many of them (multiple processes, etc). The problem I have with Java (and this comes with 10 years of writing appps in Java) is that it so slow. By slow, I mean slow to get anything implemented. Everything takes a long time to build. Depending on your company, that can be the biggest performance problem of them all!