Re:I guess it depends on where you came from (Score 1)

Language selection as I see it:

If I need speed and efficient memory usage -> C++
If I want reliability, web stuff and great refactoring tools -> Java
If I want to build an app as fast as possible -> Python with wxPython for GUI

At my work I mostly deal with large amounts of data so main solver engines are all in C++, Web based user interface code in done in Java. Some internal development utilities are done in Python.

Maybe Java will once be fast enough to catch up to C++ but not having stack object allocation or the option to manage your object lifetimes should always be a large barrier to performance especially as memory latency gets more and more important.

Then again we may all switch to a new language that has the constructs required to distribute the work from a for-each loop over all the 8 cores from your next generation CPU. Use SWIG to build Java or Python wrappers around your C++ code!