My objection to sentiments like . . . as the hardware has gotten faster and faster, it is tempting to think that optimization and CPU time no longer matter.
is of a different sort. They erode the notion that craftsmanship is important. It is easy to make fun of attempts to shave a µsec from the CP time of an I/O-bound transaction, but it remains important to try to get things right during development. The prayerbook's 'sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life' is not so widespread as it once was, but we can be very sure that entropy and maintenance will make things worse. In general, blunders aside, things are better out of the box than they will ever be again. Thus, while there is certainly a perspective from which these discussions are silly, they may be helpful if some guidance for writing new code comes out of them. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
