Premature optimization

Premature optimization refers to trying to make code run faster before having a working system. It is often tempting to, once writing a section of code, spend along time making it run as fast as possible. This sounds like a good thing, but generally, is not. This is because of two reasons:

Optimizing code introduces bugs. When optimizing, often complex code is used in an attempt to "do something smart" and hence save time. This will likely introduce bugs into the code. Refer to do the simplest thing that could possibly work for why complex code is undesirable.

It probably wont speed up the system anyway. Usually, only a very small portion of the code in a system determines it's overall speed. Hours spent optimizing every component in the system will probably have little effect on the overall speed.

The best approach is to keep it simple and get the application into a working state before doing any optimization. Once the application is working, profile it to see were most of the time is being spent, then optimize only that bit. This means that for a minimal optimizing effort, you will get maximum results.