a) The whole quote is "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not p

a) The whole quote is "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%" b) The quote isn't talking about data structuring/memory layout, but rather micro-optimizations of instruction sequences (removing goto statements, in the case of the original article)