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When accessing Object properties like 'Account.Name' multiple times throughout the code, is it better to create a variable and assign the property value to the variable once or is it fine to continuously reference the same property throughout the code? See example for more detail:

if(Account.Name.equals('Ben')) 

    Account.Status = 'Open';

else if(Account.Name.equals('Sim'))

    Account.Status = 'Closed';



Case.Name = Account.Name;

Opportunity.Newest = Account.Name;

As you can see above, the same 'Account.Name' property is accessed multiple times. Is it more efficient to do something like:

String accountName = Account.Name;



if(accountName.equals('Ben')) 

    Account.Status = 'Open';

else if(accountName.equals('Sim'))

    Account.Status = 'Closed';



Case.Name = accountName;

Opportunity.Newest = accountName;

It is (or, at least, used to be) faster to use a variable if you're going to use the field lots of times. See this video for lots of experimentation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6QnalRWlEE

Measured time on Salesforce will change as the compiler changes, and server load changes. So, unless you measure carefully, you might not even be able to see the difference.

Warning: opinion coming...

I would always treat code cleanliness (is it easy to read?) as more important than performance until you run into an actual performance problem. To quote Knuth:

Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying
about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these
attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when
debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small
efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the
root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that
critical 3%.

However, introducing an extra variable can help with cleanliness because it gives you a chance to give that variable a descriptive name which makes the code easier to follow.

Personally, that's why I'd use the extra variable.

There could be minor efficiency improvement, but IMO more of coding cleaness as Aidan mentioned already.

This is what I will code below. If more conditions are coming, a switch statement might fit better, or using base class and inherited class for polymorphism to scape from condition check.

String accountName = Account.Name;





if(accountName == 'Ben'){ 

    Account.Status = 'Open';

} else if(accountName == 'Sim'){

    Account.Status = 'Closed';

}



Case.Name = accountName;

Opportunity.Newest = accountName;