Actually I program for fighter aircraft operational flight programs. CPU, Bus Load, memory management, among others, are all very critical for our development, as our resources are very limited and made to last for decades. It is not the same as a microcontroller, but it is also very different than a normal pc architecture.

So you are suposing everyone is using a computer arquitecture that has cache, multi-core and so on. Many people actually do not work on pcs or macs, but with embedded devices, so cpu instructions still count a lot. But indeed, to go fast, do smart is the best advice. But to do smart you need to know the arquitecture you are working in. There is no silver bullet.

Dan Neely wrote:

However at some point at least one of C/C++ (memory management, pointers) and one of C#/Java (real world, higher level, standard libraries that don't suck or make you reinvent the wheel) need to be taught before graduation.

Since when C/C++ is not a real world language? Maybe this is true in your world, but there are tons of SW still being written in C/C++ today. I would add also ADA as when you can make a program compile in it, you have been enforced to get some good practices by force, so other way it wouldn't even compile. Also some model-based programming also. I like Rose RT with C++. Of course, I am not from a web world, but real-time safety critical world.