It seems that one of the frustrating things about optimization is how wrong your assumptions about the platform/environment running your code can eventually become.

At one point, programmers / compilers optimized carefully to account for 12,500 RPM rotating drum memory. Algorithms have been optimized for sequential access mass storage (tape), as well as for random access mass storage (disk). ACM Queue published an interview with Jim Gray(PDF) a couple of years ago which contains a wonderful quote illustrating how the current generation of programmers need to adjust their assumptions about data access:

So programmers have to start
thinking of the disk as a sequential device rather than a random access device.

Dr. Gray has published …

There is still a *lot* of activity around version control these days. And there should be! These tools deserve just as much attention as web browsers and email clients - those of us writing code, web sites, and documentation certainly use version control all day long.

Arjen put out a plug for Monotone today, and the support for enforcing QA procedures is definitely interesting. Personally, I think support for cherry-picking changes during a merge is a much more important feature, which it seems like Monotone doesn’t have. Speaking as someone who has worn both manager and developer hats, support for cherry-picking which changes to merge is a feature that will benefit the people actually writing code every day, while …