Even whole program analyzing compilers can't necessarily outperform a well-tuned regular compiler, see e.g. MLTon vs OCaml in this (micro-) benchmark. The OCaml

Even whole program analyzing compilers can't necessarily outperform a well-tuned regular compiler, see e.g. MLTon vs OCaml in this (micro-) benchmark. The OCaml compiler is just well-written and well-tuned and performs surprisingly well. http://www.ffconsultancy.com/languages/ray_tracer/performance.html http://www.ffconsultancy.com/languages/ray_tracer/performanc... But then as always, this benchmark may just test an implementation detail (afair OCaml is unboxing floats or float arrays (?) or maybe some of the MLTon standard lib is really slow). I seem to remember other benchmarks mirroring these results though.