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From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Superstition in Programmers
Message-ID: <611@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Jan-84 14:36:40 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.611
Posted: Mon Jan  9 14:36:40 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Jan-84 17:13:54 EST
References: <598@dciem.UUCP>, <448@bbncca.ARPA>
Organization: NTT Systems Inc., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 18

Morris M. Keesan (bbncca!keesan) writes:
	Actually, I don't consider "counting downwards to 0 instead of upwards
	to how_many_times" to be superstitious behaviour, as Mark Brader does.
	I do this myself, but I do it on purpose and with the knowledge of why
	I do it, which is that on many (most?) machines, a comparison with
	zero is cheaper than comparison with other constants.

True enough, but... using code that is the most efficient, rather than the
*clearest to read*, is still superstitious behavior *unless* you have good
reason to expect that the program will spend enough time executing that
code, or will be critical enough for space, to make a difference.
When efficiency matters, of course, one does what is necessary.

I don't claim to be free from this practice myself -- that's how I
know about it.

In the spirit of "Software Tools",
Mark Brader