In language design, we should be consciously seeking out situations where
we can trade efficiency for even the smallest increase in convenience.
		-- http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html


Most data structures exist because of speed. For example, many languages
today have both strings and lists. Semantically, strings are more or
less a subset of lists in which the elements are characters. So why do
you need a separate data type? You don't, really. Strings only exist for
efficiency. But it's lame to clutter up the semantics of the language
with hacks to make programs run faster. Having strings in a language
seems to be a case of premature optimization.
		-- http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html


In any academic field there are topics that are ok to work on and
others that aren't. Unfortunately the distinction between acceptable and
forbidden topics is usually based on how intellectual the work sounds
when described in research papers, rather than how important it is for
getting good results.
		-- http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html