> I wonder what 'institutional complacencies' we have. Problems we assume are unsolvable but are actually very trivial to solve.
I spend a lot of time optimizing builds, because the effect is a multiplicator for everything else in development.
But it is not an easy task. One issue with performance-monitoring is that you have to carefully plan your work, or you will sit around and wait for results a lot:
Try the build: 40 minutes. Maybe add profiling statements, because you forgot them: another 40 minutes. Change something and try it out: no change, 40 minutes. Find another optimization which decreases time locally and try it out: 39.5 minutes, because on the build-server that optimization does not work that well. etc.
You just spent 160 minutes and shaved 0.5 minutes off the build.
I'm not saying it's not worth it, but that line of work is not often rewarding.
On the flip-side I once took two hours to write a java-agent which caches File.exists for class-loading and managed to decrease local startup time by 500% because the corporate virus-scanner got active less often.
I spend a lot of time optimizing builds, because the effect is a multiplicator for everything else in development.
But it is not an easy task. One issue with performance-monitoring is that you have to carefully plan your work, or you will sit around and wait for results a lot:
Try the build: 40 minutes. Maybe add profiling statements, because you forgot them: another 40 minutes. Change something and try it out: no change, 40 minutes. Find another optimization which decreases time locally and try it out: 39.5 minutes, because on the build-server that optimization does not work that well. etc.
You just spent 160 minutes and shaved 0.5 minutes off the build.
I'm not saying it's not worth it, but that line of work is not often rewarding.
On the flip-side I once took two hours to write a java-agent which caches File.exists for class-loading and managed to decrease local startup time by 500% because the corporate virus-scanner got active less often.