yes, but if you noticed I'm comparing Java to C in terms of program language speed. I'm comparing Java to Ruby in development speed NOT language speed, I thought this was obvious... sorry, If I wasn't clear enough above.
You were clear, but if you're going to compare languages you can't cherry pick which features to compare. You compared Java to C performance and then Java to Ruby in terms of expressiveness. Since Ruby does not have the performance of C and C does not have the expressiveness of Ruby it's not really a fair comparison to Java.