The Fifth Kind of Optimisation
2 days ago
- #multi-threading
- #parallelisation
- #optimisation
- The author discusses the importance of parallelisation as an optimisation technique, which was initially omitted from their list of main optimisation strategies.
- Parallelisation significantly improved the performance of the author's website builder, reducing build times by more than half.
- Multi-threading is highlighted as a powerful tool for improving efficiency, especially in testing frameworks, where parallel execution can drastically reduce test suite runtimes.
- The evolution of hardware, with the advent of multi-core CPUs, has made parallelisation more viable and beneficial for performance improvements.
- Programming languages have historically struggled to provide reliable support for multi-threading, leading to challenges in writing correct and efficient parallel programs.
- Rust is praised for its robust support for multi-threading, offering safety and ease of use through features like the Send and Sync traits, which prevent common threading errors.
- Despite the advantages, multi-threading in Rust and other languages still presents challenges, such as platform-specific behaviors and the complexity of certain synchronisation mechanisms.
- The author concludes that parallelisation is now a viable and powerful optimisation tool, thanks to advancements in hardware and programming language support.