Time Taken For Optimization
Sometimes, the time taken to undertake optimization therein itself may be an issue.
Optimizing existing code usually does not add new features, and worse, it might add new bugs in previously working code (as any change might). Because manually optimized code might sometimes have less "readability" than unoptimized code, optimization might impact maintainability of it as well. Optimization comes at a price and it is important to be sure that the investment is worthwhile.
An automatic optimizer (or optimizing compiler, a program that performs code optimization) may itself have to be optimized, either to further improve the efficiency of its target programs or else speed up its own operation. A compilation performed with optimization "turned on" usually takes longer, although this is usually only a problem when programs are quite large.
In particular, for just-in-time compilers the performance of the run time compile component, executing together with its target code, is the key to improving overall execution speed.
Read more about this topic: Program Optimization
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