I certainly understand and have experienced such business initiatives and I can empathize with you about the the emotional upheaval such situations can cause. However I find your query taking on the persona of one who is playing to the crowd.

Please help me to formulate a strong argument against these senseless accusations and show him that Perl is a truly elegant language and can do whatever Java does in less time.

Clearly you have taken a side in the argument based on pre-conceived notions. I happen to agree with your statement, based on development time alone. I develop in BOTH languages regularly. I can state emphatically that it takes less development time to develop code using Perl than it does to develop Java. In the office I work in now, we also do a lot of ColdFusion work. The same can be said there. We have performed studies based on the work we've done for clients that show that as a rule CF development takes on the average 1/3 of the time.

So why do we bother using Java at all? Because in some instances it's more appropriate to do so. For example, if my target was to write an application for a cell phone. Much of it is dictated by factors you haven't mentioned.

I'm not going to address the points you have outlined because those before me (particularly Abigail-II) have addressed them already with great skill.

Instead I prefer to ask you about the things you didn't mention. For example, what does your company do? Do you write code for internal use or for clients? If for clients, are they custom jobs or 'shrink-wrapped' software? What is your target platform? Do your developers regularly re-use each other's code? That last question in particular is a decent yard-stick for language monotheism.

I have to agree with what has been said before me in that the algorithms are more important than the implementation medium.

I suppose that what gets me is that you posted a node in perl-zealot forum titled Is Java really better than Perl??? but failed to ask the question yourself. Perhaps doing so might have been 'flame-bait' but I think as an approach to the problem it would have been more scientific. Modern software development is no longer an art form, it is a science and so in order to prove your hypothesis you need to equally attempt to dis-prove it.

If your company already develops software using both languages then you should have statistical data available for how long it takes to develop software. If your argument is based on time alone, then I would suggest staging another 'bake-off' using more of an 'Iron Chef'-like format. i.e. Have a preset amount of time, a surprise theme, and have at it. Let the results be based on their articulation of the theme, subtlety of execution, and display of skill. "Flavor" is of course, always the deciding factor.

Let the science speak for you. Don't allow yourself to be drawn into a 'mine is better than yours' rhetoric, rather prove your point via professionalism. That is what impresses business people most.

- Gregor42