There seems to be a bigger problem lurking: surely it's better to instead write as little code as possible for only absolutely necessary programs. The program t

There seems to be a bigger problem lurking: surely it's better to instead write as little code as possible for only absolutely necessary programs. The program that doesn't run contributes the least amount of suffering. That of course opens up a whole can of worms of what's necessary. Only then does this question becomes relevant. Of the programs that are necessary, they should of course be written as efficiently as possible. The work to write it efficiently is fairly trivial compared to deciding what programs are necessary.