We agree to disagree. I absolutely don't disagree with optimizing when it's obvious (two for loops instead of one, etc.) All I'm saying is that, when you have

We agree to disagree. I absolutely don't disagree with optimizing when it's obvious (two for loops instead of one, etc.) All I'm saying is that, when you have thousands of lines of code (millions?) and even more complicated/intricate connections in your head of different modules, all the while when trying to reach a deadline, things aren't as obvious. You have to make compromises, it's inevitable. Amazon or Google did not scale up magically in one go by following established guidelines. I am very certain they had growing pains and I know that they had "hacks"[0] while figuring out the right solution for the problem at hand. [0] As attested by a former Googler who works at my current workplace