[Techtalk] Philosophical question: CPU/memory/disk cheaper than efficiency?

[Kai MacTane]

Akkana Peck wrote:
> 
> Unfortunately, since everyone knows that, what happens in the real
> world is that people write straightforward code, saying "we
> shouldn't do premature optimization; we'll optimize it once it's
> written". Then once it's written, the developers with their
> state-of-the-art machines and relatively simple setups say "Gee, it
> seems to work fine, and performance analysis is boring. Let's go
> work on the next new feature!" The optimization never happens, and
> users on slower hardware or with different environments are left
> with major performance problems.

I'd go so far as to generalize this to:

Any task that gets deferred until "later" during programming winds up 
never happening. Whenever a developer or development team says "We'll 
fix that later", it turns out that there are other, more pressing issues 
to be dealt with, and "later" never comes.

Maybe I'd write my general rule as: "Later" never comes, unless 
specifically scheduled. And maybe not even then.

                                                 --Kai MacTane
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"Soft and only you, lost and only you,
  Strange as angels."
                                                 --The Cure,
                                                  "Just Like Heaven"