© Copyright 1996-2004 by Paul Hsieh
http://www.azillionmonkeys.com/qed/optimize.html

Introduction

This is a page about the elusive subject of program performance optimization.  Before you proceed towards such lofty goals, you should examine your reasons  for doing so.  Optimization is but one of many desirable goals in software  engineering, and is often antagonistic to other important goals such as  stability, maintainability, and portability. At its most cursory level  (efficient implementation, clean non-redundant interfaces) optimization is  beneficial and should always be applied.  But at its most intrusive (inline  assembly, pre-compiled/self-modified code, loop unrolling, bit-fielding,  superscalar and vectorizing) it can be an unending source of time consuming  implementation and bug hunting.  Be cautious and wary of the cost of  optimizing your code.
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C++ Optimization Strategies and Techniques