"languages like Python and Ruby can be over 100x slower than other high level languages"
Notice the "can be"? It's important.
And I don't think arguing if Java is a high level language or not is very useful in this context. Notice that C++ was also included as a "high level" language. Clearly if C++ is high level then Java is too.
Anyway, the point of that comment wasn't which languages are high level - it's that efficiency is important, because some languages have areas where performance suffers.
Clearly that is true (at least to some extent) as the use of Numpy in Python shows.
I'd argue that writing Numpy (and other high-performance libraries for use in high level languages) isn't "general purpose programming" (which is what the OP) was talking about, but that is also a different discussion.
Comments
"languages like Python and Ruby can be over 100x slower than other high level languages"
Notice the "can be"? It's important.
And I don't think arguing if Java is a high level language or not is very useful in this context. Notice that C++ was also included as a "high level" language. Clearly if C++ is high level then Java is too.
Anyway, the point of that comment wasn't which languages are high level - it's that efficiency is important, because some languages have areas where performance suffers.
Clearly that is true (at least to some extent) as the use of Numpy in Python shows.
I'd argue that writing Numpy (and other high-performance libraries for use in high level languages) isn't "general purpose programming" (which is what the OP) was talking about, but that is also a different discussion.