adpx <panakal / bigfoot.com> wrote: :> Can you back this one up? It is true that pure functionals allow for some :> impressive global optimizations, but I'm skeptical of a 'many times faster :> than C' claim. C is just one layer up from assembler. : Syntax aside I think he meant that 'it is often as fast as straight C' Once again, I demonstrate that Americans (such as myself) can't read English. :) I must have had my eisegesis glasses on. OTOH, if someone said 'average OCaml programs run several times faster than average C programs', I would sit down and listen, because a certain language's constructs may force a programmer into a design that would not be taken by an average imperative programmer, and the performance difference could be substantial.