[eru]

Yes, but here it's about avoiding multiplication (and division).

I suspect on a modern processor the branches (ie "if"s) in Bresenham's algorithm are gonna be more expensive than the multiplications and divisions in the naive algorithm.

[ack_complete]

Bresenham is easy to implement branchlessly using conditional moves or arithmetic. It also produces a regular pattern of branches that is favorable for modern branch predictors that can do pattern prediction.