[erlang-questions] At what point am I "playing compiler"

[Per Melin]

John Haugeland:
>> Knuth also wrote (though I can't find the reference) that it was not
>> worth optimising
>> something that got called less that 10^9 times (I think that's right)
>> - he wrote that something like 20 years ago, so today the advice must
>> be 10^12 times :-)
>
> This isn't, of course, meant to be taken literally, if you read the
> surrounding text; therefore any attempt to mutate it based on numeric

[...]

> Skepticism in all things is the basis of deep understanding.

Though it doesn't seem to help at all with the understanding of smileys.