Jeff Varszegi

Writing code that runs quickly is sometimes at odds with writing code quickly. C.A.R. Hoare, computer science luminary and discoverer of the QuickSort algorithm, famously proclaimed, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." The extreme programming design principle of "You Aren't Gonna Need It" (YAGNI) argues against implementing any features, including performance optimizations, until they're needed. Writing unnecessary code is undoubtedly bad for work efficiency. However, it's important to realize that different situations have different needs. Code for vehicular real-time control systems has inherent up-front responsibilities for stability and performance that aren't present in, say, a small one-off departmental application. Therefore, it's more important in ... (more)