Sometimes happens: I optimize some process, it takes much less than before. Now it has been the backend of the Tweets Counter (it’s slow but because the graphic is generated in the browser, so the browser receives a .csv file with all the data and prepares it).
The backend was doing some unnecessary things. The system was spending about 30 seconds per hour mainly reading from disk and doing some basic operations. Now it takes hardly 2 seconds.
At beginning, 1 year and half ago, when the number of Tweets in the database was very small it was good enough, but with some more Tweets it was taking too long.
Should I be happy that now it is much faster?
Or sad that my first “Saturday evening” version was too slow for when the number of Tweets increased?
Well, let’s say that I should be happy (to be fair, I thought about it when I wrote).
But sometimes in other environments I hear someone “wow, now it is 50 times faster than my previous version” then I think the same: should the previous one be faster or well done for optimizing it?
(and yes, it has happened to me).
Incremental improving is…. nice 🙂
Because there is not perfect program, you cannot do it perfect at first time. Yo do it as bas as you can.
After you done it, you think about it. Perhaps you have new knowledge or a new idea that can allow you to make it better.
That is great. That means you can learn, you can review your ideas, you accept your shortages and you try to overcome them.
It is called «Continual improvement process». You should be happy. Very happy.