In this case it's probably just for fun and exercise, but generally don't think of speedy code as extending more effort, but as making the computer waste less effort. Well, unless the program isn't blocking anything any just waiting for the network, and other such cases. But any code that actually does run, especially in a loop, doesn't run in a vacuum, so I'd rather err on the case of speed. These tools don't get rewritten every 2 years in a new framework, which probably helps. Why not hone them if they're going to be that heavily used?