It kinda is. Because algorithm improvements can dramatically exceed execution time improvements, working in a language that facilitates rapid development and i

It kinda is. Because algorithm improvements can dramatically exceed execution time improvements, working in a language that facilitates rapid development and iteration is a path to better final performance than early optimization for execution speed, which is then difficult to modify. That said, premature coding is also a negative - it pays to evaluate and refine the algorithm before coding - but sometimes executable pseudocode helps in that process.