Performance: Software Engineering

This lecture covers the definition and quantification of performance, measurement techniques, setting performance goals, and improving software performance. Topics include Amdahl's Law, distribution of latencies, dealing with performance in practice, and strategies like caching, batching, laziness, and speculation. The instructor discusses how to measure performance, benchmarking, well-known benchmarks, and ways to make software faster. Examples from real-world scenarios like Netflix and Grand Theft Auto are used to illustrate concepts such as row-major vs. column-major traversal, profiling, debugging performance problems, and continuous performance testing in DevOps.