[mikeckennedy]

I didn't tell anyone to optimize anything. I just posted numbers. It's not my fault some people are wired that way. Anytime I suggested some sort of recommendation it was to NOT optimize.

For example, from the post "Maybe we don’t have to optimize it out of the test condition on a while loop looping 100 times after all."

[calmbonsai]

The literal title is "Python Numbers Every Programmer Should Know" which implies the level of detail in the article (down to the values of the numbers) is important. It is not.

It is helpful to know the relative value (costs) of these operations. Everything else can be profiled and optimized for the particular needs of a workflow in a specific architecture.

To use an analogy, turbine designers no longer need to know the values in the "steam tables", but they do need to know efficient geometries and trade-offs among them when designing any Rankine cycle to meet power, torque, and Reynolds regimes.