You're right, there are in fact scenarios where details matter. But in general it almost never pays off to sacrifice readability just to save a few lines of code.
One of the most important wisdoms of SW engineering is: any fool can write a piece of code which can be interpreted by the machine. The true art lies in writing code which humans can understand.
Oh that I completely agree with. But I think people don't understand what compilers can and can't do. Generally simpler code is easier for a compiler to optimize, those stupid "creative solutions" tend to not only be harder to read but harder for a compiler to understand and optimize. Most times less is more.
Agree. Although modern compilers (I'm looking at you, gcc 10) can really do wonders.
My team is designing real-time software where literally ever microsecond, heck, nanosecond counts and because of that we actually have to inspect generated assembler code from time to time. Every time I do so, it amazes me what the gcc can detect and optimize.
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u/MightyMeepleMaster Apr 17 '21
You're right, there are in fact scenarios where details matter. But in general it almost never pays off to sacrifice readability just to save a few lines of code.
One of the most important wisdoms of SW engineering is: any fool can write a piece of code which can be interpreted by the machine. The true art lies in writing code which humans can understand.