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Asked: 2026-05-16T15:23:01+00:00

Question of the century? I basically want to know which would be more efficient

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Question of the century? I basically want to know which would be more efficient if I wrote this code as several different variables or if I used small arrays.

int x = 34;
int y = 28;
int z = 293;

vs

double coordinate[3] = {34, 28, 293};

I have a coordinate struct which I will use in the following way:

typedef struct coordinates_t {
    double x = 0.0;
    double y = 0.0;
    double z = 0.0;

} coordinates;


typedef struct car_t {
    coordinates start; // car starting point
    coordinates location; // car current Location
    coordinates targCarVector; // Vector to car from target
    coordinates altitude; // Altitude of car
    coordinates distance; // Distance from car start to current position
} car;

I’ll need to do things like:

distance = car1.location - car1.start;

If I don’t use an array I’ll have to have a lot of lines of code, but if I use an array I’ll have to use loops. Are arrays and loops more memory/cpu intensive? I am basically trying to see which is the most efficient way of writing this code.

Thanks,
DemiSheep

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The first question is: Do you want to optimize it? Most probably, you don’t want to. At least not if you “always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.” Readability, clarity of intent and maintainability always come first.

    The second question is: Is it worth optimizing? In 97% it isn’t, according to Donald Knuth – and you don’t question Knuth, do you? Another common rule-of-thumb is the 80/20 rule, i.e. 80% of execution time is spent in 20% of the code. If you optimize at all, first profile to know where to optimize. If you guess, you’re wrong. Period.

    The third question is: CAN you optimize it? No you can’t, at least not this easily. You think you’re smarter than the hundreds of programmers who wrote your compiler over many decades? You aren’t. If the actual implementation of your algorithm and data structures can be optimized, you can assume your compiler can do that on its own. The compiler can do loop unrolling, instruction reordering, combining variables with non-overlapping lifetime, struct layout optimization, and much much more – and in this era, it’s even better than most assembly programmers in most cases. And even if there’s a bit of potential, you better focus on implementing a better algorithm. No compiler can turn O(n^2) into O(n log n), but maybe a smart computer scientist did it and you can implement his algorithm to get much better performance than any microoptimization can yield.

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