Comment by zmmmmm

Yes - I think this is what I was trying to express. I guess I think the message about premature optimization is much more subtle than usually accounted for. It's about decisions to introduce complexity, to sacrifice design integrity, etc. in favour of performance.

But it is not about devaluing having a careful discipline and intuitive sense of the performance of code and a rigour about how you think about performance in your work. All those things are still incredibly important.