I started using java at 1.4, i remember Sun shouting to anyone who would listen that HotSpot could beat the gcc of the time on some 32bit integer benchmarks. II

I started using java at 1.4, i remember Sun shouting to anyone who would listen that HotSpot could beat the gcc of the time on some 32bit integer benchmarks. IIRC it wasn't a million miles off the pace for floating point operations either.