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If it never comes back to bite you (or anyone else) in the ass, was it really a mistake?

• Splines 15y ago
  True enough, needless optimization is often unnecessary. The difference is that an expert will be able to make a good decision about that trade-off. A novice is restricted to the tools and practices they are familiar with - they might come to the same conclusion, but not for the same reasons.
• jerf 15y ago
  Taking your question literally and in isolation, no. But the manifestation more relevant to the real world is not having the experience base to realize it's biting you in the ass. Specifically, even though X is working, it could be working better, for less effort. Or another common case is X is not working and you misidentify why ("lazy developers not willing to do the work" instead of "used the wrong paradigm for the job", for instance).