3 ms·

> For some bizzare reason, a lot of P̶H̶P̶ devs obsess over mini benchmarks and tiny speed issues while ignoring massive latency factors (like the DB). This so

> For some bizzare reason, a lot of P̶H̶P̶ devs obsess over mini benchmarks and tiny speed issues while ignoring massive latency factors (like the DB). This sort of behaviour isn't unique to PHP Devs, not even close.

at-fates-hands 13y ago
True. Reminds me of all the roadies (road cyclists) who would come into our bike shop and demand the lightest components to put on their bikes, then rave about how they cut 10 GRAMS off of their bike weight. Totally ignoring the fact they're pushing almost 220lbs themselves.
- wiredfool 13y ago
  Way back when, I did a small study (4 cyclists, 5 reps). The question: Could the rider tell which was heavier between a water bottle filled with lead shot, and one with glass beads. (2.5kg vs ~ 1kg). 1 rider managed to get more than half right. And he was a frame builder riding his own bike.
  - JanezStupar 13y ago
    Not all weight loss on a bike is bad. Sure most road bikes are pretty much light enough. Thus one should prefer an efficient bike over a light one. But there nothing wrong with having light wheels for keeping the rotational and sprung mass as low as possible on a full suspension mountain bike.
    - betenoire 13y ago
      And there's nothing wrong with having optimized code. This seems to be a discussion about having the right priorities, not on the virtues of the optimizations themselves.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Hah! I have this discussion every time somebody tries to upsell me at the bike shop. I tell them that if I'm going to try to take 5 pounds off the me+bike combo, I'm not starting with the bike.
mtdewcmu 13y ago
No, it's not unique to PHP devs. I've encountered C++ programmers that obsess over pass-by-value versus pass-by-reference and strings and minor things like that, even after that code has been written and proved to be fast enough, while ignoring the real bottlenecks that demonstrably hurt performance. A lot of times when there's a big glaring bottleneck, it needs to be solved at the macro level, by reworking the approach to macro-level features, seeing how you can get to the same place by doing fewer time-consuming operations. Those folks are penny-wise, pound-foolish.

at-fates-hands 13y ago

True. Reminds me of all the roadies (road cyclists) who would come into our bike shop and demand the lightest components to put on their bikes, then rave about how they cut 10 GRAMS off of their bike weight. Totally ignoring the fact they're pushing almost 220lbs themselves.

wiredfool 13y ago
Way back when, I did a small study (4 cyclists, 5 reps). The question: Could the rider tell which was heavier between a water bottle filled with lead shot, and one with glass beads. (2.5kg vs ~ 1kg). 1 rider managed to get more than half right. And he was a frame builder riding his own bike.
- JanezStupar 13y ago
  Not all weight loss on a bike is bad. Sure most road bikes are pretty much light enough. Thus one should prefer an efficient bike over a light one. But there nothing wrong with having light wheels for keeping the rotational and sprung mass as low as possible on a full suspension mountain bike.
  - betenoire 13y ago
    And there's nothing wrong with having optimized code. This seems to be a discussion about having the right priorities, not on the virtues of the optimizations themselves.
wpietri 13y ago
Hah! I have this discussion every time somebody tries to upsell me at the bike shop. I tell them that if I'm going to try to take 5 pounds off the me+bike combo, I'm not starting with the bike.

mtdewcmu 13y ago

No, it's not unique to PHP devs. I've encountered C++ programmers that obsess over pass-by-value versus pass-by-reference and strings and minor things like that, even after that code has been written and proved to be fast enough, while ignoring the real bottlenecks that demonstrably hurt performance. A lot of times when there's a big glaring bottleneck, it needs to be solved at the macro level, by reworking the approach to macro-level features, seeing how you can get to the same place by doing fewer time-consuming operations. Those folks are penny-wise, pound-foolish.