Performance & optimisation¶
In general, COMPAS developers should code for performance – within reason. Bear in mind that many functions will be called many, many thousands of times (in some cases, millions) in one execution of the program.
Avoid calculating values inside loops that could be calculated once outside the loop.
Try to use constants where possible.
Use multiplication in preference to functions such as pow() and sqrt() (note that pow() is very expensive computationally; sqrt() is expensive, but much less expensive than pow()).
Don’t optimise to the point that readability and maintainability is compromised. Bear in mind that most compilers are good at optimising, and are very forgiving of less-than-optimally-written code (though they are not miracle workers...).