[mjw1007]

From my perspective, choosing Python over Java (on Linux) around 2001:

It was easy to find benchmarks showing that Java was fast. But Java turned out to be slower in every situation we might consider using it.

Command-line applications were slower because the JVM took ages to start.

GUI applications were slower, apparently because Python would use C-implemented widgets while Java would do much of the drawing itself.

Web applications were slower without any good excuse as far as I could see, but something in the application server that was the mainstream way of doing things added more per-request overhead than starting a whole new Python interpreter via CGI.

CPU-intensive operations (I remember image resizing in particular) were slower because, again, you ended up comparing the JVM against a well-written C extension.

[jacques_chester]

I would say that of these, most are still true-ish, except web apps and some CPU-intensive cases. Where you have a long-running service, Java shines.

Java marketing was a disaster. Remember when it was going to be the replacement for browsers? It was not a great way to engender goodwill.