* Perl-compatible regular expressions (sometimes 2x the speed of perl) [6]
And I can assure you, there are extremely many other things.
Generally, if you write absolutely correct and robust C++ code (that ensures there will never be buffer overruns, integer overflow, etc.), you'll see your code will slow down a lot. Lisp ensures these things don't happen (among many other things), and only when you tell Lisp that you are absolutely sure such things cannot happen, then your Lisp code can and often will be competitive with C or C++.
C++ has also benefitted from corporations funding the research and development of the compilers, whereas Lisp hasn't. So, as a result, the speed is partly an artifact of the implementation, not the language.
Lastly, as my own aside, the supposed "raw speed" of C (and lesser so C++) is no excuse to architect an entire system in it. There are hot paths in code that need speed, and perhaps attention should be given to those.
Rust gives you guarantees at compile time that your program is correct and theoretical performance is above C/C++. I really hope people write OSes in it. Yes, you'll have to have a lot of inline assembly and "unsafe" code, but those things can be very closely looked at. The common glue code can be safe without buffer overruns.
* High-frequency trading [1]
* 3D graphics and CAD systems by Symbolics
* Operating systems by Symbolics [2]
* Computer algebra [3]
* Supercomputing [4]
* Embedded, real-time forensic fingerprint systems (fingerprint analysis, embedded databases) [5]
* High-frequency auctions
* Performant compilers (most Lisp compilers)
* Perl-compatible regular expressions (sometimes 2x the speed of perl) [6]
And I can assure you, there are extremely many other things.
Generally, if you write absolutely correct and robust C++ code (that ensures there will never be buffer overruns, integer overflow, etc.), you'll see your code will slow down a lot. Lisp ensures these things don't happen (among many other things), and only when you tell Lisp that you are absolutely sure such things cannot happen, then your Lisp code can and often will be competitive with C or C++.
C++ has also benefitted from corporations funding the research and development of the compilers, whereas Lisp hasn't. So, as a result, the speed is partly an artifact of the implementation, not the language.
Lastly, as my own aside, the supposed "raw speed" of C (and lesser so C++) is no excuse to architect an entire system in it. There are hot paths in code that need speed, and perhaps attention should be given to those.
[1] http://www.hpcplatform.com/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genera_(operating_system)
[3] http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connection_Machine
[5] http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.5625
[6] http://web.archive.org/web/20080624164217/http://weitz.de/cl...