On 2/20/07, Bob W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > > Behalf Of Thibouille > > Sent: 20 February 2007 22:06 > > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > > Subject: Re: Camera Raw 3.7 is Here > > > > I totally agree with you John. I just felt that some do think > > (teachers in this case) that perforpance was not an issue at all. > > > > Teachers quite correctly teach that clarity & correctness are more > important than performance. It doesn't matter how well something > performs if you can't trust the answer it gives. > > Clarity implies a good design. A good design is more difficult to > optimise than a bad design because performance tends to come as a > by-product of good, simple, clear design. >
Usually, but not always. I once had the job of speeding up a program that came from CMU in Pittsburgh PA. It was a very elegant database based design, and it was supposed to search a large space of possibilities organized like a hierarchy. It took days to run. The problem turned out that it was too simple and elegant. It relied on the database to give it information that required it to search the whole database everytime to obtain, such as the parent relationship of objects. When this simple relationship was added as a direct piece of information instead of derived, the program took minutes to run. > As MA Jackson put it "The first rule of optimisation is 'don't do it'. > The second rule is 'if you have to do it, don't do it yet'". > > As CAR Hoare put it "There are two ways of constructing a software > design; one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no > deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that > there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more > difficult." > > -- > Bob > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
