At time marker 50:35 in his Git presentation to Google, Linus has a slide that says ”Performance is not secondary… it affects how you work .. and it affects quality.” At 54:50 Linus talks about “the kind of performance that actually changes how you work / it allows you to work in a completely different manner.”
These quotes are in the context of Git, but I think they apply to technology in general. I often think of performance improvements as being linear; it is common to talk about 10% or 20% speed increases; I suspect Git’s performance increases are more on the order of 10x (1000%) for many workflows. These kinds of performance speedups, though impressive, are actually more impressive than they sound!
Linear improvements, in some cases, have non-linear effects on how humans use the technology. The Ruby world has seen a massive migration to Git in the last few months. A significant reason, I believe, is that Git unlocks a new way of working. Another reason is peer pressure (the good kind): Rubyists do not like behind behind the curve.
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