>>30
-i've done lots of data processing with perl specially when working with huuuge text files. hashtables (those things starting with %) might not be the faster thing out there but it's speed is pretty decent compared to the simplicity they offer to group data.
-i worked in a bank where perl was used to process data too, even to perform multidimensional calculations (risk curves with montecarlo data) in combination with a few c programs for critical parts.
-bioperl is still popular between researchers
as for java vs c, doesn't make much sense to compare the two. java vs c++ is more appropiate i think