Comment by saagarjha
9 hours ago
I do performance optimization for a system written in Python. Most of these numbers are useless to me, because they’re completely irrelevant until they become a problem, then I measure them myself. If you are writing your code trying to save on method calls, you’re not getting any benefit from using the language and probably should pick something else.
It's always a balance.
Good designs do not happen in a vacuum but informed with knowledge of at least the outlines of the environment.
One can have a breakfast pursuing an idea -- let me spill some sticky milk on the dining table, who cares, I will clean up if it becomes a problem later.
Another is, it's not much of an overbearing constraint not to make a mess with spilt milk in the first place, maybe it will not be a big bother later, but it's not hurting me much now, to be not be sloppy, so let me be a little hygienic.
There's a balance between making a mess and cleaning up and not making a mess in the first place. The other extreme is to be so defensive about the possibility of creating a mess that it paralyses progress.
The sweet spot is somewhere between the extremes and having the ball-park numbers in the back of one's mind helps with that. It informs about the environment.