[meTaLiCroSS]

Are you aware that set_task algorithm has changed since 2006, the year that topic was made? You can find many of "nonsense" on Scripting Help talking about what to optimize or not, but today's machine are not aware at all of that kind of comsumption wasting. I assume you're looking today's AMXX source code, which is fine to refute in nowadays; but that can't be assumed as false, since it WAS a reality those days.

If you're an intermediate-expert AMXX code you'll notice that everything in the past is vastly considered "expensive/unoptimized", like, skipping function calls, avoid native calls, engine > fakemeta (because a few decimals in benchmarkings), the typical new vs static argument, variable size reductions, etcetera.

set_task should be avoided if you want to be accurate and that's all, you can use timers and think functions instead, everything else is upon coder's decisions.