[ctenb]

In Haskell with `head (sort list)` the entire list does not have to be sorted, depending on the sort implementation. Everything is lazy, so sort can sort the list just enough to return the smallest element.

[auggierose]

Going beyond laziness, a compiler that can understand and exploit equations, could use `head (sort list) = smallest (list)` to make the program more efficient, going from O(n * log n) to O(n) complexity.