>That being said, python is a language to write something up quick, prototype an idea, put up a simple webserver. However, when your program must scale or if you're trying to optimise for speed, you should highly consider java. The code will be more verbose, but you will pick up a tremendous speed increase.

If your Python application is slow, you can throw hardware at it. That's easy & cheap.

If your Java application development cycle is slow, good luck -- you cannot just throw programmers at the problem.

It's almost always better to have fast programmers than a fast application.