> A heavily optimized C program looks like C. Really? I haven't found that to be the case very often. > A heavily optimized [insert functional programming lan

> A heavily optimized C program looks like C. Really? I haven't found that to be the case very often. > A heavily optimized [insert functional programming language here. Most often haskell] program looks like shit. Here we definitely agree :). It's also worth mentioning that it's not often worth it to optimize very much of your code. (The 80-20, or perhaps 95-5, rule applies in full force.) Obviously, it's still worth it to have compilers optimize idiomatic code.