To give a specific example, strictness is a pain in the butt when you try to write a combinator library. I have once tried to write a Parsec clone for Ocaml, a

To give a specific example, strictness is a pain in the butt when you try to write a combinator library. I have once tried to write a Parsec clone for Ocaml, and sometimes, I had to write functions in eta-expanded form, lest I enter an infinite recursion. tel is right. We are desensitized to the problems of strict evaluation. It's the default, so we accept it as a fact of life. Lazy evaluation on the other hand, is "new", so whatever problems it have are magnified by our unwillingness to handle new problems. This is made even worse when we try to use lazy evaluation the same way we use strict evaluation: you get even more problems, and none of the advantages.