[Supermancho]

Contrived does not mean unrealistic. I have seen many extreme requirements come down on short notice. Over time, the peter priciple guarantees that there will be a middle manager that miscommunicates an agenda they dont fully understand, then push an emergency change down the hierarchy.

[pydry]

No, but programmers fetishize speed. Customers usually value it far, far less than many programmers think.

Ive seen many a programmer gagging to rearchitect to speed up an app 2x or 3x when there are 9 other things a customer genuinely wants first and the programmer refuses to believe it.

Most recently it was on a RAG system where an extra 500ms would surely have been appreciated but the right answer mattered 100x more.