C and C++ are well known as high-performance languages - largely due to the heavy amount of code customization, allowing a user to specify performance by choice of structure.

When optimizing it is important to benchmark relevant code and completely understand how the code will be used.

Common optimization mistakes include:

• Premature optimization: Complex code may perform worse after optimization, wasting time and effort. First priority should be to write correct and maintainable code, rather than optimized code.
• Optimization for the wrong use case: Adding overhead for the 1% might not be worth the slowdown for the other 99%
• Micro-optimization: Compilers do this very efficiently and micro-optimization can even hurt the compilers ability to further optimize the code

Typical optimization goals are:

• To do less work
• To use more efficient algorithms/structures
• To make better use of hardware

Optimized code can have negative side effects, including:

• Higher memory usage
• Complex code -being difficult to read or maintain
• Compromised API and code design

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