Optimizations.

[Narvi]

On Thu, 15 May 2003, Marcel Moolenaar wrote:

> On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 02:30:33PM +0200, Pawel Jakub Dawidek wrote:
> > Hello hackers...
> >
> > IMHO optimization in FreeBSD's code has too low priority.
> > Maybe is time to think about some 'optimiztion team' creation?
>
> I think I don't want to see this happen based on professional
> experience. My biggest concern is that it becomes a crusade.
> For if your focus is performance, you pretty much loose track
> of everything else. If not, then obviously you haven't been
> focussing.
>

Well, supposedly any such team would need to start by creating a set of
tools and benchmarks that could be used to quantify perfomance, get buy-in
from the project that these give good measures (iterate until done) and
then set up a bunch of machines to track there are no regressions?
Followed by then starting to work towards eliminating problems 8-)

> Don't get me wrong. Optimizing is a good thing, when done at the
> right time for the right reasons and in the right way. Having
> an optimization team created out of thin air can only lead to
> round-table discussions that boil down to "Hi, I'm Marcel. I like
> to optimize small objects" and before you know it all hell breaks
> loose for a barely measurable performance change.
>
> If you set yourself some simple goals and keep it high-level, then
> we can all get used to the idea and we will probably find other
> opportunities while we go. The end result can be much the same as
> you try to achieve now, except that it has a bigger chance to be
> integrated rather than some weird bunch on the side that plays
> with compiler options "and shit".

nah, don't be too hard on them. they are volunteering for a large amount
of hard work 8-)

>
> Just a thought,
>
> --
>  Marcel Moolenaar	  USPA: A-39004		 marcel at xcllnt.net
>