Yes dynamic typing, even with specialising compilers, is a killer. Today, in the RAM-only webserving world Python etc can manage perhaps 40k pages/sec (I'm thinking 4 tornado processes on quad-core box) whereas Java can do 500k at which point network IO is a deal.<p>Urban Airship have blogged about IO loops iirc, and there are similar stats fro Betfair about exchanges. To get to 500k you need to avoid GC.<p>My C++ servers go past 500k right up to LAN saturation, but surrender a lot of safety.