> >other languages (Java, Haskell, Eiffel etc) are on par
> with C++.
>
> Haskell??? Even on the Haskell advocacy page
>
http://www.haskell.org/complex/why_does_haskell_matter.html> they say: "As a general rule C++ should be faster than
> Haskell, there's no point claiming anything else."
>
> Maybe you mean OCaml?
But they also say that
For the vast majority of applications the speed difference will be negligible, however (copy-paste from the site you posted).
I do not buy 'negligible'. I haven't seen Haskell sorting equal to C/C++...I can not imagine how one could sort, let's say, thousands of records with functional languages...and sorting is a fairly common task.