[mmaldacker]

1. The "reverse-complement" problem here is simply about reading a file, reversing strings and mapping a small set of characters to another one and printing the result. This is really a simple problem and there aren't a lot of optimisations to be done. Really this about having the fastest I/O library and thus doesn't seem like a good way to compare C and Haskell. If you look at the various solutions presented on benchmark games, the core algorithms are all the same and they only differ on how to read/write and the use of threads.

2. The author talks about the importance of reducing cache misses due to pointer indirection and then proceeds by implementing a character buffer as a linked list of small buffers...

3. The C version reads and writes character one by one, this can be greatly improved by reading/writing bigger chunks at once. Actually, the author points out this optimisation but says "that would require significant changes to the code;". So the author spent time optimising the Haskell version, but spending time optimising the C version is too much work? And then arrives at the conclusion Haskell is faster?

4. Commenters on the author's blog cannot reproduce the results...