At 10:09 PM -0400 7/6/10, Paul M Foster wrote:
On Tue, Jul 06, 2010 at 06:32:40PM +0200, Per Jessen wrote:
In principle, I agree - in practice, CPU cycles are getting cheaper by
the minute, and being wasted all the time. Not using HTML is highly
unlikely to have a measurable impact on anybodys CPU cycles.
I keep hearing this argument. Here are what I consider similar
arguments.
"Everyone else pours their waste into the river. Ours won't make that
much difference."
"Our smokestack is just one of hundreds in the city. No one will notice
the additional smoke."
"Putting paint thinner down the toilet won't make any difference. The
water processing plant will clean it up."
Just because everyone else wastes CPU doesn't mean you have to
contribute to it, too.
I keep hearing this argument too!
There's always two sides to every argument -- to extend your
metaphor, as a result of pollution we have the EPA and other
environmental concerns who are now so focused on the "rules" they
actually hurt the quality of life for *all* things (the recent Gulf
Oil Spill is one of thousands of examples). The application of any
rule-set should be tempered with how it affects the whole and not the
just a part.
The term "Waste" in the phrase "Wasting CPU cycles" is dependant upon
what yardstick you use to measure what "waste" means. I do not think
it a waste when you break your code into more manageable parts as
compared to creating a cryptic routine that simply runs quicker.
When creating code, there are things more important things to
consider than CPU cycles, such as readability, maintainability, and
reusability. Every programmer has to realize that "Wasting CPU
cycles" (like wasting memory) is becoming exponentially less of a
problem whereas creating reusable code is doing just the opposite. So
when considering "waste" I hold programmer's time in more regard than
CPU cycles.
Just because some people write cryptic code, doesn't mean you have too. :-)
Cheers,
tedd
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