FRC Java or Labview?

[Aeglos]

Disclaimer- my experiences with LabVIEW are not exactly up to date, as we switched to using C++ a few years ago.

There is, in my opinion, one truly great thing about LabVIEW, and that is the level of support it is given not only by FIRST but also by National Instruments, where no similar support is offered for Java, C++, and the like.

It is true that it is very easy to get started with LabVIEW, meaning that yes, initially, you will find it more streamlined. However, it is significantly more difficult to use for custom functions or more complex/ advanced functions than the other languages are.

As well, your team will often find the increase in deployment/ compile times to waste time when it is possibly needed most (robot testing at competition/ bag and tag week), which could possibly have the reverse effect of what is intended.

No offense meant, and I will not pretend to know the situation or personalities of you or any members of your team, but to me it sounds like your mentor is making a push for LabVIEW because that is the language he has more experience with and prefers more. This means that yes, for him, it must be a faster solution than Java, so of course he wants to pass that onto the team.
However, you should remember that he isn't the one writing the code; you guys are, and should use what you think works best and fastest, not anything else.

In addition, Java will prepare more people for likely situations in the workforce, especially because Java is so prolific, and using it can give students very valuable life/ career experience.

Those are just my $0.02 (or $2.00, really, i wrote a lot. Sorry)