Don’t Pre‑optimize: Why Clarity Beats Premature Performance Tweaks

Every developer has stared at a fresh function and wondered, “Can I make this faster right now?” Simon Harris’s Beginner Algorithms (2006) reminds us that pre‑optimizing is often a wild goose chase. In this week’s Weekly Dev Chat we’ll unpack that advice, examine real‑world trade‑offs, and surface strategies for balancing performance with readability. Main arguments:

• Most hot‑spots are hidden in I/O, network latency, or third‑party services, not in the loops we think matter.

• Well‑structured code is easier to profile, test, and refactor. Simple abstractions often let compilers and runtimes optimise better than hand‑rolled tricks.

Everyone and anyone are welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others. Zoom link will be posted at 12pm MDT.