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We're all warned against premature code optimisation, and that's fair. Optimising too early can make the code more complex and hard to maintain without any evidence as to whether it actually makes it faster. A lot of the time it really is better just to write the code and worry about optimisation when/if speed becomes an issue.

On the other hand all programmers ought to understand the concepts behind Big-O notation and algorithmic complexity. Applying these concepts to your code can actually help make it both more simple and faster at the same time. It may mean not going with the first solution you think of, but once you've got the concepts worked out, making these simple changes to your coding style will allow you to reap huge benefits.

Stream: Perl

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Jacinta Richardson, B Software Eng (Hons), B Sci, has more than eight years of commercial Perl and teaching experience. She is a qualified software engineer and the chief technical writer and course coordinator for Perl Training Australia.

Jacinta actively supports many local Australian Open Source user groups such as Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane Perl Mongers, AussieChix LinuxChix and various Linux and BSD user groups. In her free time she likes to work in her garden, scuba dive and cook.