Don’t Over Optimize

Usage

📝 Guideline

Don't Over Optimize: Avoid excessive code optimization efforts to save development time and rely on optimizations of the system.

Optimizing your code can sometimes be a waste of time. Modern browsers and hardware are equipped with powerful optimization mechanisms that automatically optimize code at runtime, making manual optimizations unnecessary in many cases.

🛠️ How to Apply

• Prioritize readability: Focus on writing clean and understandable code rather than obsessing over minor performance improvements. 📖
• Leverage browser optimizations: Trust the capabilities of modern browsers to optimize your code automatically and efficiently. 🚀
• Measure performance: Identify critical performance bottlenecks in your code and optimize only where necessary. ⏱️

Pros and Cons

👍 Pros

• Development efficiency: By avoiding unnecessary optimization efforts, you can save time and focus on more critical aspects of development. ⏰
• Improved code readability: By avoiding excessive optimizations, the code remains clear and understandable, making it easier to maintain and collaborate on. 📚
• Focus on critical areas: Instead of spending time optimizing non-critical sections, developers can concentrate on the most performance-sensitive parts of the codebase, maximizing efficiency. ⚡️

👎 Cons

• Missed optimization opportunities: Not investing any effort in code optimization may lead to missed opportunities to improve performance and efficiency in critical areas. ❌
• Potential performance issues: Neglecting optimization completely can result in suboptimal code that may perform poorly, especially in scenarios where optimizations are essential. ⏱️
• Inefficient resource utilization: By not optimizing code, resources such as memory or network bandwidth may be used inefficiently, leading to unnecessary overhead and increased costs. 💸

Examples

❌ Bad

// Bad: Excessive optimization
 
// On old browsers, each iteration with uncached `list.length` would be costly
// because of `list.length` recomputation. In modern browsers, this is optimized.
for (let i = 0, len = list.length; i < len; i++) {
  // ...
}

✅ Good

// Good: Prioritizing readability over excessive optimization
 
for (let i = 0; i < list.length; i++) {
  // ...
}

References

🔀 Related principles

• Code Readability: Prioritize code readability to enhance maintainability and collaboration. 📖
• Benchmarking: Utilize benchmarking techniques to identify performance bottlenecks. ⏱️
• Optimize Critical Paths: Focus optimization efforts on the most performance-sensitive sections of code. ⚡️