I didn't say optimizing code doesn't work or does not yield speed-ups. In fact I am optimizing my own code, too. But I only get ~10% speedup, tops. Because pe

I didn't say optimizing code doesn't work or does not yield speed-ups. In fact I am optimizing my own code, too. But I only get ~10% speedup, tops. Because perf is decided at the design level, in the architecture, data structures and algorithms. In fact, if you get massive speedups in your optimization phase, I would view that as a sign that your process has issues. There should not be that much potential left after you wrote the code down. Elite fit on one floppy disk. Do you think they got there by taking a slow implementation and optimizing it? Have you ever used Turbo Pascal? You think you could get that kind of speed by taking an existing pascal compiler and optimizing it a bit?