YOu mention that you dad is a retired programmer. Programmers who worked in the mainframe world had to be very concerned about performance. I can remember studying a Navy activity where thier mainframe was hardware-constrained to 64K of memory per user. In that programming world you have to eek out every little tiny bit you could.

Thinga are vastly different now and most programmers don't need to worry so much about micro-optimizations. However, embedded systems programmers still do and database people still very much need to use optimzed code.

You mention that your dad is a retired programmer. Programmers who worked in the mainframe world had to be very concerned about performance. I can remember studying a US Navy activity where their mainframe was hardware-constrained to 64 KB of memory per user. In that programming world you have to eek out every little tiny bit you could.

Things are vastly different now and most programmers don't need to worry so much about micro-optimizations. However, embedded systems programmers still do and database people still very much need to use optimzed code.