Re^7: CPU cycles DO NOT MATTER!

[Joost]

...optimizing for CPU cycles in a language running in a 10-year old VM is rather silly.

Depends on how you're optimizing, of course. It looks to me like you're mainly railing against all those useless micro-optimizations (like using map EXP, vs MAP { EXP }).

But just choosing a sane algorithm for the job can easily reduce the time to run by many orders of magnitude, even if the algorithm is purely CPU bound. In that case, and if the dataset is large enough, CPU cycles obviously DO matter.

IOW "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil."

[dragonchild]

And, that is the kind of understanding I was hoping people would come to. I know you know it. Hopefully, some junior will come by in a few years, run across this thread, and learn.