> OPs software might never have been a productive business if he micro optimized some C++ code in pursuit of best possible performance. It's not an either-or.

> OPs software might never have been a productive business if he micro optimized some C++ code in pursuit of best possible performance. It's not an either-or. Maybe the best long-term approach would be to write it in a high-level style favouring readability, productivity and adaptiveness, while also being conscious not to use features that could lead to performance problems. Maybe you'd write it in a compiled (native/efficient VM) language[1] with garbage collection and be mindful of memory layout, instead of writing it in Ruby[2]and then having to rewrite some parts in another generally faster language later. Then you also wouldn't have to have that "Ugh, now I need to bust out C++/C/Go/Whatever and rewrite that stuff... oh never mind it's probably fast enough" when you start to run into performance problems. [1] More precisely an implementation of a language which is compiled... [2] Though maybe Ruby is compiled in the canonical implementation, for all I know.