Sun admits Java is impractical for software applications {courtesy: blogdex}

If an internal memo at Sun Microsystems is to be believed, there are rumbles within the home of Java, the most hyped/popular enterprise application development language around today: Sun's own engineers, while not discounting Java's benefits over C/C++ have concluded that its implementation on Solaris makes it difficult to deliver reliable applications. A key problem is the required Java Runtime Environment (JRE), which is larger on Solaris than comparable runtime environments when one considers the amount of memory dedicated to a specific program (according to the menu, the typical resident set required for a Java2 Hello World program is 9 megs, which, in one word, is ridiculous). According to a study in 2000, the Python runtime required was about 1.6 megs (Python was chosen for comparison because of the features it shares with Java: Object-Oriented, with support for web applications, serialization, internet connections and native interfaces). {abstract of study report | PDF}.