Architecture is not optimization. This gets fuzzy with the decision to use caching, static generation, etc. Ideally, redis or memcached can be added when needed. It will require some changing of the app but hopefully in limited places.

This rule a la Pike is about doing things like writing assembly or manually unrolling loops in noncritical parts of code. However, in some code, almost everything is on the critical path, and that requires architecture. I’m thinking of Carmack’s single function game loop here.

I remember working on a project that claimed to want 10,000 transactions per second. “Okay”, I said, “how much can be accomplished in 100us?”

They looked at me like I was an idiot. “No, it’s going to be clustered and pipelined.”

“Ok, if you can do that maybe you have a budget of 1-5ms.”

“No, we’re going to give each transaction up to a second to get done”

I smiled and admitted that they were obviously a lot smarter than me. Oddly enough the product never saw the light of day.