Sick of eating quiche?

Here are some interesting articles I have read over the past few days.

The first is an interesting article suggesting that learning to program in assembly helps you be a better high-level programmer. I think it has some valid premises. I would actually add that you should be able to design logic systems, program in assembly and write a basic operating system in C. But that could just be me...

Why Learning Assembly Language is Still a Good Idea [onlamp.com]

The second is a somewhat interesting essay that walks through the writeers quest for performance in a particular program. In the useful parts, the writer talks about our often misguided attempts to find efficiency in the wrong places.

Programming as if Performance Mattered [dadgum.com]