4 ms·

The key to making programs fast is to make them do practically nothing Priceless...

by DanielRibeiro 15y ago

bluekeybox 15y ago
Problem is, sometimes you need to know a whole lot about everything to afford to do nothing.
Radim 15y ago
"All programming is an exercise in caching." - Terje Mathisen
haberman 15y ago
"To go fast, do less" --http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-write-fast-code.html http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-write-fast-cod...
kragen 15y ago
While that has been true for 70 years, it is ceasing to be true now; today you can often make your program faster by causing it to do more computation in order to avoid communication, or in order to tolerate communication latency, which may involve doing more communication, or occasionally in order to tolerate node failures, so that you can take advantage of more nodes.
- jerf 15y ago
  Tradeoffs have been around for all of that 70 years, only the ratios and absolute performance has changed.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  In the first case, you are doing less (communication) to go faster. In the second case, you are doing less (computation) to go faster. The less expensive operations you have to do (whatever they may be), the faster your program is. That has been true for the past 70 years, and will continue to be true as long as computing remains in the slightest bit recognizable to men of our field as it currently stands.
  - jleader 15y ago
    70 years later, and we're still all "men"?
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      Oh get over yourself. b : the human race : humankind http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/man http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/man
      - jleader 15y ago
        Yes, but that definition you quote is for "man" (often written as the more archaic "mankind"), not "men". You're actually using definition a.1: "an individual human; especially : an adult male human", in the plural, to refer to adult male humans of our field. Admittedly a pedantic point, I wouldn't bother if it didn't contribute to a real-world problem.
        true_religion 15y ago
        I think that for the sake of backwards compatability with the linguistic upbringing of most English speakers, we should use "men" to refer to both human genders. If this means that male gendered individuals will have to be pluralized as "males" and never "men", then that's something we should live with.
        elemenohpee 15y ago
        How about "people"?
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        jtheory 15y ago
        That was tongue-in-cheek, I think. Imagine changing all of the restroom signs from "men" to "males", because "men" would signify "bathroom for everyone". Or seeing in the newspaper "The blast killed 22 men, including 3 that were pregnant".
xtacy 15y ago
Does the claim make sense in newer processors which when halted switch to a low-power C-state? Waking them up can consume a lot of time (order of milliseconds).
kingkilr 15y ago
You can't make your CPU execute instructions faster, you can make it execute fewer of them though.

The key to making programs fast is to make them do practically nothing Priceless...

bluekeybox 15y ago

Problem is, sometimes you need to know a whole lot about everything to afford to do nothing.

Radim 15y ago

"All programming is an exercise in caching." - Terje Mathisen

haberman 15y ago

"To go fast, do less" --http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-write-fast-code.html http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-write-fast-cod...

kragen 15y ago

While that has been true for 70 years, it is ceasing to be true now; today you can often make your program faster by causing it to do more computation in order to avoid communication, or in order to tolerate communication latency, which may involve doing more communication, or occasionally in order to tolerate node failures, so that you can take advantage of more nodes.

jerf 15y ago
Tradeoffs have been around for all of that 70 years, only the ratios and absolute performance has changed.
burgerbrain 15y ago
In the first case, you are doing less (communication) to go faster. In the second case, you are doing less (computation) to go faster. The less expensive operations you have to do (whatever they may be), the faster your program is. That has been true for the past 70 years, and will continue to be true as long as computing remains in the slightest bit recognizable to men of our field as it currently stands.
- jleader 15y ago
  70 years later, and we're still all "men"?
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Oh get over yourself. b : the human race : humankind http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/man http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/man
    - jleader 15y ago
      Yes, but that definition you quote is for "man" (often written as the more archaic "mankind"), not "men". You're actually using definition a.1: "an individual human; especially : an adult male human", in the plural, to refer to adult male humans of our field. Admittedly a pedantic point, I wouldn't bother if it didn't contribute to a real-world problem.
      - true_religion 15y ago
        I think that for the sake of backwards compatability with the linguistic upbringing of most English speakers, we should use "men" to refer to both human genders. If this means that male gendered individuals will have to be pluralized as "males" and never "men", then that's something we should live with.
        elemenohpee 15y ago
        How about "people"?
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        jtheory 15y ago
        That was tongue-in-cheek, I think. Imagine changing all of the restroom signs from "men" to "males", because "men" would signify "bathroom for everyone". Or seeing in the newspaper "The blast killed 22 men, including 3 that were pregnant".

xtacy 15y ago

Does the claim make sense in newer processors which when halted switch to a low-power C-state? Waking them up can consume a lot of time (order of milliseconds).

kingkilr 15y ago

You can't make your CPU execute instructions faster, you can make it execute fewer of them though.