Java is slow for other reasons than the JVM. The language itself is not designed for speed - relative to C/C++. For a nice elaboration of these ideas go here http://www.jelovic.com/articles/why_java_is_slow.htm . Mike ---- > The problem is not the Java language, but the JVM. There are no > JVM's that I > have seen that are as speedy as any native language. It mostly has to do > with the fact the hardware is completely unknown to the program, > and only the > JVM knows about it. Perhaps if someone could write a JVM as a > kernel module > (not just the Java Execicutable as done before) things might run a little > faster, but not much.