[rigelbm]

Not having to care about performance (because hardware is fast) allows us to build more software than ever before. Although optimized software saves on computing resources, it is wasteful on the most important resource of all: Software Engineers' Time. Not to say it's not important, but saying we are wasting computing resources for "no real reason" is not fair. There are a lot of delicate trade-offs involved.

[rytcio]

That’s also the sad part. It’s no longer about taking pride in one’s craftsmanship and caring about the end-users experience. It’s about cranking out janky products to make money.

[ajconway]

No, it's about delivering products faster or prettier.

There are fields where squeezing every tiny bit of performance matters — media compression, 3D software (including game engines), data processing, hardware.

Engineering is not art, it's about building things that can be useful.