28.3. Optimize the Slowest Parts
Although there are other motivations, such as personal satisfaction, most people optimize a program to save money. Don't lose sight of this as you spend time increasing the performance of your programs. There's no sense in spending more time optimizing than the optimization itself saves. Optimizing an application used by many people is usually worth the time, especially if you benefit from licensing fees. It's hard to judge the value of an open-source application you optimize, but I find work on open-source projects satisfying as recreation.
To make the most of your time, try to optimize the slowest parts of your program where you stand to gain the most. Generally, you should try to improve algorithms by finding ...
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