Premature Optimization
Noun · Hacker Culture · Origin: 1974
Definitions
The act of optimizing code for performance before you know where the actual bottleneck is. Knuth called it 'the root of all evil,' and he wasn't wrong — developers spend countless hours micro-optimizing functions that run once a day.
In plain English: Spending time making code faster before you even know if it's slow — like soundproofing your house before checking whether the noise is actually coming from inside.
Etymology
- 1974
- Knuth writes 'premature optimization is the root of all evil' in his seminal paper