This article looks a lot like a scheme tutorial to me. That is not to say that it isn't interesting and written well. It's just not what's advertised.<p>Anyhow, for some things Scheme can produce efficient applications. However, other things are extremely inefficient in Scheme. There's no way around the fact that C is still much better at producing small, efficient, native apps.<p>It's much easier to get things going in Scheme. But then when you want to finish off a project to a high standard, the language itself becomes the limiting factor. The lack of optional typing, lack of native 32 and 64 bit integers (for some things you really need all 64 bits), inefficient string handling libraries (especially substrings), lack of standardised object oriented stuff and standardised foreign function interface and a general lack of available <i>efficient</i> and full-functioned libraries all end up causing frustration.