[gclist] Java vs. ML, particularly GC

[Dave Mason]

I have 10-20K lines of coding experience in SML, Caml, Scheme (, and
C) and am now building a system in Java (about 5-10K so far).  Java
(using the Sun VM (not HotSpot)) seems much more sluggish than the
functional languages (particularly Ocaml), and the information I've
seen on Java performance suggests that garbage production and
resulting collection are *major* performance bottlenecks and a
programmer caring anything about performance should give serious
thought to minimizing the use of dynamic variables.

1) opinions on the accuracy of this perception?

2) are there aspects of Java that will make its GC significantly slower?

Thanks for any input.  ../Dave