Assess performance bottlenecks by asking whether an improvement matters, then measuring performance. A reduction in an interactive program’s runtime from 1 ms to 0.9 ms is usually not worth pursuing. section 16.0
Memory bound
A performance bottleneck is a program component or operation that substantially limits overall execution efficiency.
How Modern C, Third Edition covers it
- How deep it goes
- Introduces relevance and measurement, leaving detailed bottleneck assessment to a later discussion of performance measurement.
- Examples
- Contrasts reducing an interactive program’s runtime from 1 ms to 0.9 ms with worthwhile performance work.
- What it assumes
- Assumes the implementation has been made safe before performance is assessed.
- What you can do after
- Evaluate whether a performance improvement is relevant before investing effort in it.
- How it connects
- Connects bottleneck assessment with performance measurement and code optimization.
Also explained in
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"Looks Good to Me"A workflow constraint that limits throughput or delays progress through a process.
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Architecture Modernization: Socio-technical alignment of software, strategy, and structureA bottleneck is a constraint in a process or system that limits the rate or efficiency of overall work.
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Refactoring to RustA bottleneck is a component or operation that limits the throughput or execution speed of a larger system.
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Modern CA performance bottleneck is a program component or operation that limits overall execution performance.
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Elixir in Action, Third EditionA bottleneck is a component or operation whose limited processing capacity constrains the throughput of a larger system.
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Machine Learning System DesignA bottleneck is a system component or operation that limits overall performance because it constrains throughput or increases processing time.
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Advanced Algorithms and Data StructuresA bottleneck is a component or operation that limits the overall throughput or performance of a system.
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Apache Kafka in ActionA bottleneck is a component or resource that limits the throughput or capacity of a system.
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Starting Data Analytics with Generative AI and PythonA bottleneck is a component or operation that limits the overall performance or throughput of a system.
Compare how 11 books explain memory bound →
Related concepts
- profilingmeasured by · Profiling is the measurement and analysis of a program’s runtime behavior and resource use to characterize performance and identify bottlenecks.
- compute-boundcontrasts with · A computation is compute-bound when its performance is limited primarily by available processor or arithmetic capacity rather than memory transfer, input/output, or other resources.
- intermediate leveladdressed by · An intermediate level is a workflow stage that receives grouped partial results and processes them before a final aggregation stage.
- FlashAttentionaddressed by · FlashAttention is an exact, input-output-aware attention algorithm that tiles computation to reduce memory traffic and avoid materializing the full attention matrix in high-bandwidth memory.
This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Modern C, Third Edition. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.