Efficient coding considered harmful?

[News administrator]

[profile of prime calculation]
>%time cumsecs #call ms/call name
> 82.7    4.77               _sqrt

[in code]
>    for (i = 2; i <= root(n); i++)

[note: root() calls sqrt()]

sqrt() shouldn't dominate your profile so much after you take it out
of the loop.  This isn't fortran; root() is called on every iteration.

True, some optimizations are maintenance pessimizations, but
most C compilers can't tell when function calls can be optimized out.
Thus the call for a "pure function" keyword (a function whose value is
the same for the same arguments, with no side effects).

>    Paul Schmidt

Merlyn LeRoy