ChrisK wrote:
And, though I had never seen it before, the current winner for speed is "ATS" ( http://www.ats-lang.org/ ) which is dependently-typed functional language.
And as discussed on Reddit recently[1] it uses a good deal of embedded C/C++ and so is subject to the same non-idiomatic complaints.
While the non-idiomatic complaint is a valid one, I think it's also overrated. Back in the day people said that an automatic compiler would never be able to out-perform hand-written assembly; and today gcc produces better assembly code than any mere mortal. Yet occasionally C/C++ programmers still feel the need to do the compiler's job. Similarly, if ATS or Haskell lets one write better C/C++ than any mere mortal, then it has won-- even if programmers feel the need to do the compiler's job from time to time. Compilers for any language will never be omniscient, but they're far more consistent about applying known optimization patterns globally.
While some tasks do require absolute performance, high-level languages seek to optimize programmer time which is far more valuable than cpu time for the great majority of tasks. The optimization techniques for Haskell are quite different than for C, but I wouldn't say they are inherently "harder" in any real sense. Optimizing Haskell requires a deep understanding of the runtime internals of ghc (or other compiler of choice); optimizing C requires a deep understanding of the runtime internals of C's memory 'runtime'. The only difference I see is that C's view of the world is taught as canon and has been a target of research for longer.
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/72hmw/language_shootout_ats_is_the_new_top_gunslinger/
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