[withinboredom]

And in some cases, there isn't a reason to continue to step 2 or 3. Software generally has a shelf-life. Most businesses write code that should be rewritten every 5-10 years, but there's that kernel of code that _never_ changes... that's the code that really needs step 2 and 3. The rest, probably only runs occasionally and doesn't explicitely need to be extremely tested and fast.

[captainkrtek]

Agreed. Having worked the range of boring backend systems to performance critical embedded systems, only few areas are worth optimizing for, and we always let data inform where to invest additional time.

I much prefer a code base that is readable and straightforward (maybe at the expense of some missed perf gains) over code that is highly performant but hard to follow/too clever.