We're not talking micro-optimization to squeeze an extra 0.5% performance out of a system. We're talking about an order of magnitude (or more) slowdown, in a la

We're not talking micro-optimization to squeeze an extra 0.5% performance out of a system. We're talking about an order of magnitude (or more) slowdown, in a language already not exactly known for its blazing speed. My question of the day: why isn't more time spent on building abstractions that aren't just convenient but that are also fast? Why does readable, maintainable code have to mean code so slow it effectively turns Core i7s into Pentium 90s? I don't think it has to mean that at all, but that's exactly the choice a lot of programmers seem to think they're making.