I've been fiddling with my ray tracer again this weekend. This time I've come 
up with a comparison of four different (progressively optimised) versions of 
the ray tracer implemented in C++, Java, OCaml and SML:

  http://www.ffconsultancy.com/free/ray_tracer/languages.html

OCaml is significantly more concise that the other languages (even SML) but 
the big surprise for me was the incredible performance of straightforwardly- 
written Mlton-compiled SML, even on AMD64 where it lacks a native code-gen.

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
Objective CAML for Scientists
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists