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Performance (cont)

In the 1960's, performance was a significant problem.

Hardware:   16KB memory,   128KB disk,   1000instr/sec.

So, much programming effort was spent on efficiency "tricks".

Unfortunately, there is usually a trade-off between ...

  • execution efficiency achieved by "tweaking" code
  • the understandability of the code
Despite remarkable engineering feats, 60's programs were:
  • compact, fast, efficient, ... incomprehensible, incorrect

Knuth: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil"