[dsirola]

I strongly dislike that his words are always distorted by taking out of context this small segment of what he said.

"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%. A good programmer will not be lulled into complacency by such reasoning, he will be wise to look carefully at the critical code; but only after that code has been identified. It is often a mistake to make a priori judgments about what parts of a program are really critical, since the universal experience of programmers who have been using measurement tools has been that their intuitive guesses fail." - Donald Knuth

[avian]

To be honest, I don't think taking the sentence out of context distorts much. This quote (which I see in full length for the first time) pretty much says how I always understood the shorter version.

It's not "optimization is root of all evil". The key is "premature optimization". Maybe people gloss over that part, but it is right there.

Yes, Knuth goes into more detail on what he considers premature optimization in the context of programming computers. However the short sentence applies much more broadly in my experience.

For example, "premature optimization" of BOM costs in a hardware project can cost you dearly down the road when it turns out that leaving in some extra flexibility in the design would be mighty useful.

[hombre_fatal]

Also, of course there are always exceptions to a platitude. I don't think we need to couch every single statement we ever make with "...but there are exceptions, of course!" which is basically what Knuth goes on to belabor.

[aidenn0]

More like such platitudes are nearly devoid of meaning:

Premature X is bad.

Overusing X is bad.

These are true for most X. If it's not bad, then you didn't do it prematurely or overuse it!

[aidenn0]

For further context it was justifying using a goto statement to shave 12% of the execution time off of a function. Knuth bringing it up was specifically to acknowledge that he is aware of the principle to stave off arguments. I more often see it used to push back against any changes for speed.

[mikestew]

It brings to mind a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson that is often abused in a similar manner: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." It is interesting to observe the results of someone treating "foolish" as a filler word that can be glossed over. For our purposes here, substitute "foolish" with "premature". Leave that word out, and more context is needed. But that's why Knuth didn't leave that word out. With one simple adjective, the statement stands as is.