Pre-Mature Optimization
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 10:16 pm
feyd rightly pointed out that the OT pre-mature optimization comments in the single-double quote thread had gone too far (darn him!
). But it is an interesting topic because I think there is more agreement than you might think, but people come come at it from different perspectives. I would propose that there are three related activities with fuzzy borders involved in this conversation.
1. Simply writing efficient code. That means selecting the best coding practices and algorithms the programmers knows to solve the current problem -- based on your knowledge of the problem.
2. Optimization. That means improving code to improve performance. There seems to be an implication that there is more information available now than when the original code was written.
3. Pre-mature Optimization. That means attempting to improve code without knowing whether there are really performance problems and/or without sufficient knowledge to know whether the changes will actually improve performance.
1. Simply writing efficient code. That means selecting the best coding practices and algorithms the programmers knows to solve the current problem -- based on your knowledge of the problem.
2. Optimization. That means improving code to improve performance. There seems to be an implication that there is more information available now than when the original code was written.
3. Pre-mature Optimization. That means attempting to improve code without knowing whether there are really performance problems and/or without sufficient knowledge to know whether the changes will actually improve performance.