Java previously didn’t have pattern matching, and now re-uses an older syntax to have that. There is nothing “slow”, java was never meant to be at the forefront

Java previously didn’t have pattern matching, and now re-uses an older syntax to have that. There is nothing “slow”, java was never meant to be at the forefront of language design (it’s a blue-collar language). Even then, it is not at all behind compared to the other mainstream languages with this feature - most of them don’t have pattern matching at all.