premature optimization
nounEtymology It was first coined by Donald Knuth in his 1974 monograph The Art of Computer Programming which won a Turing Award.
1
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Programming, Sciences The act of wasting resources on optimising source code that does not represent a significant bottleneck.
- The real problem is that programmers have spent far too much time worrying about efficiency in the wrong places and at the wrong times; premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.1973, Donald Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming:
- 2016, Amitt Mahajan, Why you’re mispricing your VR seed round, VentureBeat Similar to engineering, premature optimization can cause you to focus on items that don’t materially affect your outcome and can divert your attention away from those that do.
- Hypernyms
- optimization