Functional programmers have long worked to improve the compiler optimization of functional language implementations. This is how we got innovations like the con

Functional programmers have long worked to improve the compiler optimization of functional language implementations. This is how we got innovations like the continuation passing style (first used for compiling Scheme), deforestation, defunctionalization, tail call elimination, and strictness analysis (for lazy languages like Haskell). Also, a lot of literature on improving garbage collection came from trying to improve the speed of a functional language like Lisp or Standard ML. It seems to me that functional programmers tend to care more about optimization than e.g. Python or Ruby developers, because functional programming has a long history of being perceived as slow and they want to change it. Scheme, OCaml, Standard ML, and Haskell all have implementations that perform well and compile to assembly.