Totally agree. > (which go way beyond mere bit-twiddling, btw) I was fascinated by optimizations people come up for Game of Life by reading Michael Abrash's B

Totally agree. > (which go way beyond mere bit-twiddling, btw) I was fascinated by optimizations people come up for Game of Life by reading Michael Abrash's Black Book. > a programmer who "merely" plugs frontends into backends with databases" I am such a programmer: never have used bit manipulation in my job, and while it is kinda boring, it is a job, and someone has to do it.