Java Backend Technology

Sep 29, 2019 · Fundamentals

Why Adding Zero Can Slow Your Code 7×: The Hidden Cost of Denormalized Floats

An intriguing experiment shows that a seemingly harmless "y += 0" operation can be seven times slower than "y += 0.1f" due to CPU handling of denormalized floating‑point numbers, and the article explains the binary representation, performance impact, and how to disable it for faster code.