However you have to consider this trait of crappy programmers...

CPU cycles are a precious commodity and your programming style and language reflects that belief.

Always remember you're writing code for other people to read, not the compiler.  Even if that "other person" is just you in 3 months time.

Be aware of your target architecture and its quirks, but don't be a slave to it.

Regards

Glenn Enright wrote: 

Word alignment is important in languages like C too.  Eg,
    

Yeah whoever says the way the code reads doesn't make a difference to the 
final program has probably never done system level stuff ;). Compilers are 
good, but they're not psychic. In the past I've been keen to make the code 
more readable, but examples like that probably crop up too often to ignore. 
That also explains partly why kernel code is somewhat spares sometimes. 
Thanks for your insight.