First of all, most of the cost of a system comes from maintenance after implementation. So the idea that “an engineer can read it 40% faster” isn’t as trivial as you make it sound.
Secondly, well laid out code that doesn’t need to be commented is generally simpler to write, easier to test and easier for the original developer to conceptualize when he’s writing it. I’ve seen lots of programmers get lost in the complexities of their own approach because they don’t organize their code properly.
Finally, my understanding is that modern compilers optimize lots of things automatically, probably better than an engineer would and on all of the code. Write your code for the human to read it, let the compiler do its thing, and optimize by hand only that tiny percentage of code that causes performance issues.
First of all, most of the cost of a system comes from maintenance after implementation. So the idea that “an engineer can read it 40% faster” isn’t as trivial as you make it sound.
Secondly, well laid out code that doesn’t need to be commented is generally simpler to write, easier to test and easier for the original developer to conceptualize when he’s writing it. I’ve seen lots of programmers get lost in the complexities of their own approach because they don’t organize their code properly.
Finally, my understanding is that modern compilers optimize lots of things automatically, probably better than an engineer would and on all of the code. Write your code for the human to read it, let the compiler do its thing, and optimize by hand only that tiny percentage of code that causes performance issues.