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Division still cost more than multiplication?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg24253] Division still cost more than multiplication?
• From: AES <siegman at stanford.edu>
• Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 23:10:35 -0400 (EDT)
• Organization: Stanford University
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Old-time FORTRAN programmers (like me) were taught (at least in early 
days) that division cost a lot more machine cycles than multiplication.  
So, if you had an expression like  y = x/c  that was going to be called 
many times inside a loop, where x and y were variables and c a constant, 
you'd code this as:

   (Outside the loop)

      cInverse = 1/c;

   (Begin loop structure)

      y = cInverse * x

Does this still make any sense in Mathematica?  Or is it a primitive 
relic of long-gone days?