My personal preference is to program in C++ however I do have to say that java has its uses. It has a few features that are easier to use than either C++ Builder (which I used to use) or Visual C++ (which I currently use), mainly I find that coding a GUI goes faster in java. Then again with a visual GUI Editor as both C++ Builder and Visual Studio have it becomes a mute point. As far as java being sluggish I’m not sure whether you are referring to the IDE or to the actual running of the program. If it’s the IDE there isn’t much that can be done but there are two virtual machines that Sun makes available for Java. The first and the one that you are most likely to have is the Standard Edition, it works well but is optimized for loading programs, not running them. The server virtual machine is optimized for running programs and does a good job of speeding critical (or even not so critical) code up, but it does take longer to load programs, and the virtual machine is larger.
If it were me I’d stick with C++, but if you are doing GUI on different OSes it might make sense to go with Java. If you download the Enterprise Edition SDK, JSEE, for the server virtual machine, and Eclipse for the IDE you end up with a powerful, multiplatform developing system for nothing.
Martin Jay McKee