Why GNU grep is fast (2010) | Hacker News Reader

Why GNU grep is fast (2010)

lists.freebsd.org

31 pointsdnet5 comments

This is posted again and again, and I re-read it every time.

I'm also reminded of this:

    You can't make your code run faster,
        you can only make it do less work.

I usually put links to previous discussions because I find value in the comments by HN users, but I'm not going to do that this time. You can search if you want to find previous discussions - there have been many, and some contain some real gems.

I know what you mean. I'm always like..."Uhh! Repost." Then I re-read it and...become enlightened.

Some times you can make it do more book keeping to work faster, though. This is actually a good example of that.

And, then there is an amusing reality to your message. What has done more to increase the speed of grep? Good techniques, or advances in computing speed? That is, making your code run faster has probably increased the speed of grep more so than making it do less. :)