The 90-10 Rule

• The 90-10 rule says that 10% of the code accounts for 90% of the run time

• The other 90% of the code is:

  • Special cases (executed infrequently)

  • Initialization code (executed only once per run)

  • Error handlers (executed never)

• More conservative version: The 80-20 rule

• I counted the lines to see if this was true

  • If anything, '90-10' may be too conservative

  • See the Bonus Slides for details

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Copyright © 2003 M. J. Dominus