Every time this phrase comes up, we need the context again, which conveys a different picture from the tiny and not-so-useful piece taken from it (and which the

Every time this phrase comes up, we need the context again, which conveys a different picture from the tiny and not-so-useful piece taken from it (and which the author successfully adhered to -- kudos!): "There is no doubt that the grail of efficiency leads to abuse. Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance a considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3 %. A good programmer will not be lulled into complacency by such reasoning, he will be wise to look carefully at the critical code; but only after that code has been identified." --Knuth, emphasis mine