[louthy]

This is quite a good article on exactly that:

http://simontcousins.azurewebsites.net/does-the-language-you...

The same application written in C# and F# by the same programmers (the C# project took 5 years, the F# project 1). It in no way proves anything, but it's food for thought.

Personally I've had huge wins moving from OO to functional (Haskell and F#).

[klodolph]

I've seen similar studies. I wonder, however. Functional programming is somewhat esoteric, so a random selection of programmers who practice FP are likely to be more dedicated to the craft of programming in general. I think the truly interesting question to ask would be, "Can we make software better by having the same programmers use functional programming?"

[yxhuvud]

The second time you write the same thing is always a lot faster than the first time.