W1SEG

Amateur Radio Station

There is no doubt that the grail of efficiency leads to abuse. Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. 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%. A good programmer will not be lulled into complacency by such reasoning, he will be wise to look carefully at the critical code; but only after that code has been identified.

—Donald Knuth

quote Handmer A-12

Kelly Johnson and his team at Skunk Works designed and built the A-12 (SR-71 Blackbird precursor) in about 28 months with a crew of 25 engineers and fewer than 50 technicians, no computers, no analysis, just sliderules and nicotine. And they had to invent stealth tech, computerized celestial navigation, and titanium metallurgy at the same time.
—Casey Handmer

W1SEG Amateur Radio Station

quote Handmer A-12

Kelly Johnson and his team at Skunk Works designed and built the A-12 (SR-71 Blackbird precursor) in about 28 months with a crew of 25 engineers and fewer than 50 technicians, no computers, no analysis, just sliderules and nicotine. And they had to invent stealth tech, computerized celestial navigation, and titanium metallurgy at the same time.
—Casey Handmer

There is no doubt that the grail of efficiency leads to abuse. Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. 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%. A good programmer will not be lulled into complacency by such reasoning, he will be wise to look carefully at the critical code; but only after that code has been identified.

—Donald Knuth