>>Even so, I try to make things as fast as possible. I know I hate waiting for the computer, and I don't want my users to have to wait.
>
>If you've got a speed problem (and it sounds like you do, at least on one machine), then you certainly should optimize the heck out of it.
>
>Jim's point, however, is that this should be done on an as-needed basis. There's an old saying, "premature optimization is the root of all evil." :) I've seen programmers waste days making a piece of code as fast as possible, only to find that there was no perceivable difference in the speed of the program as a whole.
>
>This is a pet peeve of mine. I once wrote a beautiful OOP p-machine in C++ that everyone was convinced needed to be written in assembly, to wring the last drop of speed out of the system. When they finally did convert it to assembly, they found the program had sped up by a grand total of 5%--totally unnoticeable by the user.


Well, I don't go out of my way to optimize things. I just don't do things that I think will slow things down if there's another way that's just as easy. As to the one user, I don't have a clue what to do there.

I had to write in pseudo-assembly for a class once. Never again!

-Michelle