[dale_glass]

I think cryptography is one of the few places where it makes sense to do that. Because:

* There's not that much code involved.

* Many CPUs have instructions specifically made for accelerating cryptographic algorithms.

* Security may have specific requirements from the code, such as not giving away any secrets through timing. This may require writing very specific, suboptimal code intentionally.

[sylware]

... and keeping critical pieces of code as much independent as possible from the very few grotesquely and absurdely massive and complex optimizing compilers is always a good idea.