A friend recently learned about Proebsting's law and mentioned it to me off hand. I knew about the law's existence but I never really asked myself - do I believe in it?
For people who aren't aware, Proebsting's law states:
Compiler Advances Double Computing Power Every 18 Years
Which is to say, if you upgrade your compiler every 18 years, you would expect on average your code to double in performance on the same hardware.