[0dmethz]

Of course you should consider performance when you start a project - if your language, framework or core design is slow it seems unlikely you'll be able to do much to improve it later. You need to at least think about it.

But I don't think "Premature optimization" is synonymous with "performance". Optimizing or perfecting every detail of a feature that might still go through significant changes over time seems risky and wasteful.