The One Where Speed Matters

Writing for performance

Most users agree that applications can never be fast enough. Anytime you talk to people about what annoys them in a piece of software, performance, or lack thereof, it is the one thing that gets to the top of the list.

And that makes sense: we are all busy, and we certainly don’t want to spend time waiting for a piece of machinery to catch up with us. It has to be the other way around!

But if you think about it, you’ll realize it is a miracle that computers can do anything at all within a reasonable time. If you think you’re busy, just look at everything computers need to do! You can do the following experiment:

1. Reboot your computer.
2. Log in.
3. Start (if you’re using Windows) Task Manager (hint: use the Ctrl + Shift + Esc combination).
4. Look at how much stuff is going on in the section background processes.

All of those processes are examples of system programming. They are...