Slightly off topic, but everytime I use Java I start to get this dull, drained feeling and my brain begins to slow down. And no matter how far and wide I look, applications written in Java frequently end up being slow or need many servers to perform. This is amazing to me. A verbose, mind-numbing, slow language touted as clear, compact, and fast.
I don't know how it happens, but somehow, even though it's compiled into a faster-executed runtime, many Java applications end up slow anyway.
For a long time, software written in Java was often painfully slow. Swing apps were particularly bad. This did leave a very negative impression on all sorts of people, from developers to managers to executives to the end users who had to use these applications written in Java.
Thanks to hardware, JVM and Java class library advances, it isn't as much of a problem as it once was. But there are still many people out there, especially in the corporate and small business world, who are forced to use Java apps on desktops that are a decade old, if not older in some cases. These systems often weren't very powerful to begin with, and due to budgetary constraints they may not be able to upgrade them. It's not a pleasant situation to be in.
So while Java may appear fast enough on a powerful server, or a modern development workstation, this isn't an experience that everyone using Java applications gets to share in. When people suggest that Java is "slow", I don't think it's appropriate to discount what they're saying. It very well could be an accurate description of their situation and experience.
it is always possible to explain why some particular program is running slow and in case of programs running inside JVM, JVM itself is almost never the (only) reason.
I don't know how it happens, but somehow, even though it's compiled into a faster-executed runtime, many Java applications end up slow anyway.
"Powerful" language.