[quacker]

>Should really every programmer know it?

This lame comment comes up every time I see something like this posted. You're right. Knowing exact latency numbers is probably not going to change how you program, or how I program, or how most program. But why does it hurt to know? Why refuse to learn a few numbers that give some perspective on your system's limitations?

The other end of this is, for example, a programmer who is unaware that disk seeks take something like 100000x as long as accessing main memory.

(Anyway, the posted link is interesting since it shows these numbers over time.)

[thesis]

What might seem like a lame question to you might seem valid to others.

[ChuckMcM]

It is probably a useful exercise for someone who thinks knowing these numbers is useless, to understand why other people don't think they are useless. And in that sense asking the question is valid.