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Goto Leads to Faster Code
pdoubleya writes "There's an article over at the NY Times (registration required) about Kazushige Goto, the author of the Goto Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines (BLAS, see the wiki); his BLAS implementation is used by 4 of the current 11 fastest computers in the world. Goto is known for painstaking effort in hand-optimizing his routines; in one case, "when computer scientists at the University at Buffalo added Goto BLAS to their Pentium-based supercomputer, the calculating power of the system jumped from 1.5 trillion to 2 trillion mathematical operations per second out of a theoretical limit of 3 trillion." To quote Jack Dongarra, from the University of Tennessee, "I tell them that if they want the fastest they should still turn to Mr. Goto."" Ever get the feeling someone wrote an article merely for the pun?
I'm in a programming class right now (literally: my notes are open in another window) and GOTO hasn't even come up. It's an intro-level class, but... I see WHY it's used, and it for sure has its purpose, but if there's a more efficient way to program, duh people are going to go for it. And "registration required"? Ha: http://www.bugmenot.com/ (And yes, the NY Times is on there.)