Post by Frederic Thevenet - Takahē

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Takahē

Frederic Thevenet

@fthevenet@mastodon.social

315d

Overly eager summarization is the root of all evil.

#ai #summary #tldr

A screenshot of a famous quote by Donald Knuth:

"We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%."

The words "premature optimization is the root of all evil" which is the part that is generally cited, are in bold while of the rest of the quote is in a much lighter font.

This makes it easy to overlook the full breadth and meaning of the original quote, and why people so often misuse the shorter version as shorthand for "you shouldn't bother with optimization".

Edited 315d ago

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