Questions

Here are some questions so that you can test your understanding of the topics in this chapter. You'll find the responses at the end of this book, if you'd like to look them up:

1. What is premature optimization?
2. What did Donald Knuth really say about it?
3. Why do we need performance optimization techniques?
4. Which is the worst premature pessimization?
5. Why is main memory slow?
6. What is ILP, and what has it to do with thread synchronization?
7. Is hyperthreading good or bad for performance?
8. Why do we still use the likely/unlikely macros in the Linux kernel?
9. Is a 64-bit program performance-wise better than a 32-bit program?