The JVM goes for performance, too, only with an emphasis on the performance of larger programs. It's designed to address some of the serious performance issues that large C++ programs tend to suffer from (I originally made the switch to Java because it was getting hard to keep the large C++ applications we were working on fast enough; Java does some optimisations that are hard for a C++ compiler).

Well, yes. True that for long-running apps JVM seems to be tuned.

I meant the kind of "perf-to-the-instruction" thst native can generate vs other considerations.