In my opinion, the truth is somewhere between what the author is suggesting and what most developers actually do. I recently came across The Fallacy of Prematur

In my opinion, the truth is somewhere between what the author is suggesting and what most developers actually do. I recently came across The Fallacy of Premature Optimization on ACM [1], which I think is a much better take on this topic. It clarifies the statement that started this confusion which, in whole, was "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil" [2]. The key words being "small efficiencies", but you seldom hear that part of the quote. [1] https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=1513451 https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=1513451 [2] Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare