If your point is that knowing the past is, in general, interesting to understand the future, then I broadly agree. However, at some point, records of the past

If your point is that knowing the past is, in general, interesting to understand the future, then I broadly agree. However, at some point, records of the past become full of anectodes and little details that don't translate to anything valuable. And I was wondering if this was the case here. I should have pointed out that I actually read part of the black book back in 2003 (how times flies...) , and, back then, I was already wondering if the book was relevant because of the focus of assembly and pre-pentium chips. So, seeing the book mentioned 16 years later made me wonder what I might have missed, besides the eternal truth of "measure before you optimize".