With the ever-increasing speed of consumer computers, frequently developers decide that it is much more important to get their applications shipped quickly than to take extra time to optimize their code a bit. This morning I ran across an interesting article that points why this is a Bad Idea™.
The Fallacy Of Premature Optimization
From the article:
“Every programmer with a few years’ experience or education has heard the phrase “premature optimization is the root of all evil.” This famous quote by Sir Tony Hoare (popularized by Donald Knuth) has become a best practice among software engineers. Unfortunately, as with many ideas that grow to legendary status, the original meaning of this statement has been all but lost and today’s software engineers apply this saying differently from its original intent.”
Enjoy!
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