4 ms·

Oh common. This might be true for a very specific type of codebase, but it isn't true for programming in general. If I'm coding a library of standard statistica

Oh common. This might be true for a very specific type of codebase, but it isn't true for programming in general. If I'm coding a library of standard statistical functions I'm exiting early. If I'm coding a Rails webapp I'm exiting early. If I'm coding a shell script, even one used on tens of thousands of servers, I'm exiting early. The resource almost all programmers are managing is the resource of human time. Human time to code the project, human time to review the code, human time to alter the code after the fact, human time to port the code to different environments. If you're writing code to run AI at Google then fine, you're managing resources at a level where performance starts to hit limits that warrant a style change, but generally speaking you know that ahead of time and you choose tools to handle a project of the right scope, but generally speaking exiting early isn't impacting your code performance. Big O mistakes are.

bottled_poe 9y ago
I guess I would agree with the concept of managing “human time”, but I believe you are focusing on the wrong human. The developer will certainly spend a lot of time writing and maintaining a code base, but that’s minuscule compared to the time spent by the end user. What software design principles will save the user the most “human time”?
weinzierl 9y ago
Cleaning up resources after use is not a question of performance, it is a question of correctness.
- 3pt14159 9y ago
  Choosing an environment that requires you to clean up resources instead of handling it for you is mostly a question of performance.
  - monocasa 9y ago
    Not really, inlined RAII is just as fast as doing it yourself.
jjnoakes 9y ago
Don't forget the human time to debug the code (especially the rare or only-happens-under-load issues, which can be related to resource exhaustion, among other things). Also, some of your examples (like altering or reviewing code) can become easier and faster if resource management is a first-class citizen in your code base or language (i.e. is either more explicit in the code, and you know to look for it and manage it, or it is somehow taken care of automatically by your language, so you would have a hard time forgetting it, even if it is handled implicitly).
- 3pt14159 9y ago
  Yeah that is true.

bottled_poe 9y ago

I guess I would agree with the concept of managing “human time”, but I believe you are focusing on the wrong human. The developer will certainly spend a lot of time writing and maintaining a code base, but that’s minuscule compared to the time spent by the end user. What software design principles will save the user the most “human time”?

weinzierl 9y ago

Cleaning up resources after use is not a question of performance, it is a question of correctness.

3pt14159 9y ago
Choosing an environment that requires you to clean up resources instead of handling it for you is mostly a question of performance.
- monocasa 9y ago
  Not really, inlined RAII is just as fast as doing it yourself.

jjnoakes 9y ago

Don't forget the human time to debug the code (especially the rare or only-happens-under-load issues, which can be related to resource exhaustion, among other things). Also, some of your examples (like altering or reviewing code) can become easier and faster if resource management is a first-class citizen in your code base or language (i.e. is either more explicit in the code, and you know to look for it and manage it, or it is somehow taken care of automatically by your language, so you would have a hard time forgetting it, even if it is handled implicitly).

3pt14159 9y ago
Yeah that is true.