> I’m struck here by an analogy to the Linux kernel. Kernel developers often use “time to build the kernel” as a go-to benchmark when proposing kernel optimizat

> I’m struck here by an analogy to the Linux kernel. Kernel developers often use “time to build the kernel” as a go-to benchmark when proposing kernel optimizations, because it’s a performance-intensive benchmark that every kernel developer, by construction, has readily at hand. Not coincidentally, the Linux kernel is drastically faster than any other production kernel I know of for certain operations that kernel builds exercise heavily, such as filesystem lookups. I think there’s a general lesson here that converting some desirable system property into a direct personal pain point for developers of the system creates very powerful feedback loops to ensure that property. Nice observation. It's a generalization of how devs with slow computers write more efficient code.