in reply to Re^4: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler
in thread Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler
From Type system (wikipedia):
Certain languages, for example Clojure, Common Lisp, or Cython, are dynamically typed by default, but allow this behaviour to be overridden through the use of explicit type hints that result in static typing. One reason to use such hints would be to achieve the performance benefits of static typing in performance-sensitive parts of code.
So, to get close to (statically typed) Java in terms of speed, Perl 5 would need to make significant tweaks to its type system and the way it handles polymorphism, as indicated by chromatic's response. See also MJD perl.com article (2001), which explains why making Perl as fast as C is problematic.
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