5 ms·

Also useful: "If you want to make a fast program, use a slow computer."

laumars 10y ago
Not really necessary in most cases. There's enough profiling tools available that can give response times in fractions of a second and in many cases you can add repetition to inflate the few processes that are still too small to measure. These will give you far more meaningful figures about the performance of your code than anecdotal evidence using a slow PC as a benchmark.
- dr_zoidberg 10y ago
  I agree with both of you. Once I optimized a major Python project to avoid some bad disk access patterns. Nobody noticed them because everyone was using SSDs and those patterns didn't hurt (too much) performance on those, but I was running on an HDD and I had run times of hours (vs a couple of minutes for everyone else). But my optimizations were guided by the profiler and a (more or less) correct analysis of the results.
- adrianN 10y ago
  Developers care more about performance if it's slow on their computers too.
  - kochthesecond 10y ago
    Haha, this is true. Yet i still need to have as fast build and feedback as possible when I'm doing work.
    - StillBored 10y ago
      Which is one of a hundred reasons why the machine you write the code on, the machine you build it on, and the machine you test it on, should be three different machines (actually probably more than that because your test environment should be more varied than a single OS/environment).
      - laumars 10y ago
        If we really want to adhere to best working practices, then it should be a separate team performing the tests based on the same specifications that the developers used to write the code (ie the testing team wouldn't perform tests based on the developers specifications but rather the project owners specs to mitigate the risk of the developers misunderstanding the specs). However that requires a level of process that is either too costly, or too rigid for many IT companies to follow.
CaptSpify 10y ago
I used to work at a place that had an intentionally slow dsl line, and a ~5 year old, beat up pc to test their code on. If it worked there, it would work for their customers. I wish more places would try this. Sure, your app works in downtown SF, but if your customer is in Nowheresville, AL, you should probably spend more time optimizing.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  I wish more web developers would test their sites on 3G connections with Australian latency :-)
  - sliverstorm 10y ago
    The difference between 3G & 4G both in speed and latency is profound, and nobody seems to design with 3G in mind, so I find from a data standpoint 3G is practically worse than nothing these days. All of your apps will say "I have data access!" and send a million requests for tens of megabytes, which will never finish, melting your battery as it waits on timeouts and completely choking the access you do have preventing you from doing anything useful.
  - drakonandor 10y ago
    Why encourage technology lag and bad ISP behavior?
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      Because that's the lazy answer
    - takeda 10y ago
      Because programmers are lazy. Why making program faster when it works fine on their top of the line desktop machines?

Not really necessary in most cases. There's enough profiling tools available that can give response times in fractions of a second and in many cases you can add repetition to inflate the few processes that are still too small to measure. These will give you far more meaningful figures about the performance of your code than anecdotal evidence using a slow PC as a benchmark.

dr_zoidberg 10y ago
I agree with both of you. Once I optimized a major Python project to avoid some bad disk access patterns. Nobody noticed them because everyone was using SSDs and those patterns didn't hurt (too much) performance on those, but I was running on an HDD and I had run times of hours (vs a couple of minutes for everyone else). But my optimizations were guided by the profiler and a (more or less) correct analysis of the results.
adrianN 10y ago
Developers care more about performance if it's slow on their computers too.
- kochthesecond 10y ago
  Haha, this is true. Yet i still need to have as fast build and feedback as possible when I'm doing work.
  - StillBored 10y ago
    Which is one of a hundred reasons why the machine you write the code on, the machine you build it on, and the machine you test it on, should be three different machines (actually probably more than that because your test environment should be more varied than a single OS/environment).
    - laumars 10y ago
      If we really want to adhere to best working practices, then it should be a separate team performing the tests based on the same specifications that the developers used to write the code (ie the testing team wouldn't perform tests based on the developers specifications but rather the project owners specs to mitigate the risk of the developers misunderstanding the specs). However that requires a level of process that is either too costly, or too rigid for many IT companies to follow.

CaptSpify 10y ago

I used to work at a place that had an intentionally slow dsl line, and a ~5 year old, beat up pc to test their code on. If it worked there, it would work for their customers. I wish more places would try this. Sure, your app works in downtown SF, but if your customer is in Nowheresville, AL, you should probably spend more time optimizing.

sotojuan 10y ago
I wish more web developers would test their sites on 3G connections with Australian latency :-)
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  The difference between 3G & 4G both in speed and latency is profound, and nobody seems to design with 3G in mind, so I find from a data standpoint 3G is practically worse than nothing these days. All of your apps will say "I have data access!" and send a million requests for tens of megabytes, which will never finish, melting your battery as it waits on timeouts and completely choking the access you do have preventing you from doing anything useful.
- drakonandor 10y ago
  Why encourage technology lag and bad ISP behavior?
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    Because that's the lazy answer
  - takeda 10y ago
    Because programmers are lazy. Why making program faster when it works fine on their top of the line desktop machines?