“We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the
time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should
not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.”
Donald
Knuth
Since when did correct data typing in the production database
become optimizations???
Comments on We'll Optimize Later
This is echoing a feeling I've had now for the past year or so—the
phrase “premature optimization is the root of all evil” has been so drilled
into programmers that it seems like no thought at all is being employed.
Technically speaking, writing code is “premature optimization.”
Why bother even writing code when we can call upon the mighty powers of the
lazy web to see if
it's been written already. Or something close. Heck, it doesn't even have
to be close, as long as it's code that can be adapted (just try to ignore
the time factor when it takes longer to adapt code than it would have taken
to write code from scratch, which may make a better impedance match to the
rest of your code).
So remember, thinking about your code is a form of premature
optimization.
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