There Ain't No Such Thing as the Fastest Code

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@Rob on February 20, 2008 10:01 AM

“Everything should be done in assembly language.”

In a perfect world where developers have all the time in the world to get the job done, I suppose you’re right… But when your boss asks you to make an MS Access database to do something relatively simple for a handful of users, and asks you to get it done by the end of the week, is assembly really the best approach? More often than not, I think most people will opt for slapping it together quickly with relatively slow VB scripts. I know I do!

I think sometimes there’s a valid play-off between code optimisation, and coding time optimisation.

(Ok, fair enough, I’m not a coder by trade, just an average techie who periodically gets called upon to perform minor coding tasks, but I think my point is still valid).

82

If your work is some sort of business app or web app or something, sure, it probably doesn’t need to be optimized with today’s compilers/ hardware.

However, I work on solving electromagnetics simulation problems with hundreds of thousands (or millions) of unknowns, problems that take weeks to solve on even a large computer cluster.

Anyone that wants to work in an are where optimization is an absolute must should pick up a few books on advanced EM and algorithms and come to the dark side of computational electromagnetics :).