I think you can only judge that by knowing the context, like the domain and the experience of the designer/dev within that domain.
I looked at a DB once and thought "why are you spending effort to create these datatypes that use less storage, I'm used to just using an int and moving on."
Then I looked at the volumes of transactions they were dealing with and I understood why.
Deep down, the optimizer in me wants this to be true, but I'm having trouble seeing how this difference manifests in these days of super powerful devices and high bandwidth.
I guess I just answered my own question though. Supposing there's a system which is slow and connected with very slow connectivity and still sending lots of data around, I guess there's your answer. An embedded system on the Mars Rover or something.
I think you can only judge that by knowing the context, like the domain and the experience of the designer/dev within that domain.
I looked at a DB once and thought "why are you spending effort to create these datatypes that use less storage, I'm used to just using an int and moving on."
Then I looked at the volumes of transactions they were dealing with and I understood why.