[haberman]

> So, yes, Haskell semantics encourage functional programming, C semantics imperative programming, both are Turing complete and yes GCC is currently better at optimising C code than any Haskell compiler

No. That is not why C is winning. C is winning because of fundamental differences between its semantics and Haskell's semantics that makes it possible to implement C with less overhead on actual CPUs.

If the lesson you took from your language theory course is that all Turing-complete languages are equivalent, you should ask for your money back. While it is true that they are all capable of expressing any algorithm, there are fundamental differences that deeply affect the efficiency of implementing them: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5082609