{"id":8067,"date":"2026-05-21T01:09:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T05:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/?p=8067"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:56:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:56:59","slug":"is-optimization-still-premature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/is-optimization-still-premature\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Optimization Still Premature?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When it comes to technology, I find myself occupying an odd little age niche. I am young enough to have missed the era when working near to metal was the norm. Pointers and malloc<\/code> wars in C are about as close as I get most days, and for my entire career, the prime directive of code optimization has been simple: Don\u2019t do it. Trust your compiler<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, premature optimization is bad. Really bad. Making esoteric coding choices, sacrificing readability, or spending engineering time chasing theoretical wins without empirical data is not discipline. That’s just superstition with a profiler-shaped hole in it. The problem is that this fair advice has, over time, curdled into its own religion. \u201cDon\u2019t optimize prematurely\u201d<\/em> has become \u201cdon\u2019t think about architecture at all\u201d<\/em> (Hyde, 2009).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why use bit-fields when a group of byte-sized flags is easier to understand? Why flatten an array with disciplined constants when you can write a struct or class and assume the compiler will sort it out? Why think about memory layout, cache locality, branch prediction, allocation patterns, or instruction count when modern machines are absurdly fast and the optimizer is supposedly smarter than you? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet I am also old enough to have watched Moore\u2019s Law slowly lose its argument with the laws of physics, while software staggered under the weight of more and more bloatware. Need to run a few trigonometric operations? There\u2019s a library for that. Who cares if it pulls in half a gigabyte of dependencies? Memory is cheap. Need to process a tiny amount of data? Spin up a framework, a runtime, a container, and six abstraction layers. Machine time is cheap and getting cheaper. Humans are expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well guess what – the machines aren\u2019t cheap anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memory is not cheap. CPU time is not cheap. Power is not cheap. Cooling is not cheap. Hardware is not cheap. The physical world has returned to collect the bill (TrendForce, 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is before we even talk about what happens after execution. Maybe the application code runs fast – but what about the artifact it produces? Let\u2019s say the output is meant for the web. Can your compiler strip comments? Can it minify? Can it apply basic compression? Can it defer anything besides the ads? Ehh, who cares. Everybody has broadband, right? Right? (McClain & Bishop, 2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI did not create our wasteful attitude toward computing resources, but it has become the perfect catalyst. It produces code in volume, often mediocre code, often bloated code, often code that works just well enough to survive review. At the same time, AI systems devour hardware, electricity, water, and capital at a scale that makes \u201cjust throw more compute at it\u201d<\/em> feel less like engineering and more like environmental denial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t an attack on AI, and if it were, I would be a massive hypocrite. I use it every day, including to proofread this article (proofread, not write – the em dashes are mine, thank you very much). After all, it isn’t AI choosing to hog up the world’s limited production of silicon. It isn’t AI choosing to cater toward bulk sales, sometimes to the point of shutting down consumer divisions (Popal et al., 2026). It isn’t AI inflating a balloon that will inevitably pop and probably wreak havoc on world markets for several years when it does. AI is just itemizing the invoice for our bad habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it is time to revisit some old taboos. Maybe optimization is not premature when waste has become the default. Maybe the compiler is not a substitute for thinking. Maybe \u201cold school\u201d<\/em> optimization was never really old school at all. Maybe it was just respect – for the machine, for the user, and for the resources we pretended were infinite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s Still Here<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There is some good news. The techniques never went anywhere – the institutional knowledge just got more niche. For example, remember somewhere between \u201cInternet of Things\u201d<\/em> and \u201cAI,\u201d<\/em> when \u201cBig Data\u201d<\/em> was the buzzword for five minutes or so? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it happens, when big data really is big data and not advertising jargon, engineers have to care about edge computation, complex event processing, compression, memory locality, batching, caching, paging, and load balancing – in other words, optimization by less glamorous names, driven by necessity rather than nostalgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, modern re-releases of software whose original codebases consumed less space than this post frequently weigh in at gigabytes. Perhaps, with AI demanding its piece of the pie, some of that miserly mentality might have to find its way back into mainstream development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moderation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, I am not saying we need to go back to writing everything in assembly and tracing voltage paths by candlelight. Readability is still rule zero. Abstraction is still a good thing when it earns its keep. The compiler is smarter than you – or at least smarter than me – and most of the time, that is exactly how it should be. Generative code is great when it saves time on boilerplate and you know what you\u2019re looking at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is not the compiler. The problem is not the language models. The problem is the dogma. \u201cTrust the compiler\u201d<\/em> was useful advice when the alternative was cleverness for its own sake. Combined with the rise of natural-language coding, however, it starts to look less like discipline and more like abdication. Especially when cost per cycle is no longer falling toward zero like we were promised, but climbing back into view (Jeronimo et al., 2025). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m only advocating for a bit of cognitive acuity and subject matter awareness. I mean really, how hard would it have been to make that buffer 128 slots wide instead of 126 and save a few cycles on division? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hyde, R. (2009). The fallacy of premature optimization<\/em>. ACM Ubiquity<\/em>. https:\/\/ubiquity.acm.org\/article.cfm?id=1513451<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeronimo, F., Mainelli, T., Ma, B., Reith, R., & Janukowicz, J. (2025, December 18). Global memory shortage crisis: Market analysis and the potential impact on the smartphone and PC markets in 2026<\/em>. IDC. https:\/\/www.idc.com\/resource-center\/blog\/global-memory-shortage-crisis-market-analysis-and-the-potential-impact-on-the-smartphone-and-pc-markets-in-2026\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

McClain, C., & Bishop, W. (2026, January 8). What we know about internet use, smartphone ownership and digital divides in the U.S.<\/em> Pew Research Center. https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2026\/01\/08\/internet-use-smartphone-ownership-digital-divides-in-u-s\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Popal, N., Reith, R., Janukowicz, J., Mainelli, T., Jeronimo, F., & Ma, B. (2026, February 26). Higher ASPs, lower unit volumes: How the memory crisis is reshaping the PC and smartphone outlook<\/em>. IDC. https:\/\/www.idc.com\/resource-center\/blog\/higher-asps-lower-unit-volumes-how-the-memory-crisis-is-reshaping-the-pc-and-smartphone-outlook\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TrendForce. (2026, March 31). AI server demand to drive memory contract price increases in 2Q26 as CSPs secure supply via long-term agreements<\/em>. https:\/\/www.trendforce.com\/presscenter\/news\/20260331-12995.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe optimization is not premature when waste has become the default.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pointless-pontification","category-technology-temerity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/optimize_0.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5lNM5-267","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8067"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8090,"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8067\/revisions\/8090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caskeys.com\/dc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}