I answered almost exactly the same question on Stack Overflow once, except the asker was comparing (x / 2) to (x * 0.5). Someone had previously advised him to

I answered almost exactly the same question on Stack Overflow once, except the asker was comparing (x / 2) to (x * 0.5). Someone had previously advised him to use the latter, on the theory that multiplication is cheaper than division. I disassembled both to show that (x * 0.5) is absurdly less efficient: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/895574/what-are-some-good-code-optimization-methods/1354688#1354688 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/895574/what-are-some-good...