Pre defined functions vs User Defined?
<p>Im coding in <strong>php</strong> and taking part in a coding competition which gives points to scripts on the basis of memory usage, running time, and ofcourse accuracy of algorighm.
I got the algo right and working for all test cases. But I got a little less marks than I expected. 
To save lines of code, I used strpos() function in a loop. 
when I changed strpos() function to manually finding string function that I made, my points increased...
Now I'm confused... I guess I can make more points if I use my own defined functions instead of all library functions I used (strlen,strpos,etc) ...</p>

<p>Does making our own defined functions in scripts help in making the code faster ?
I'm not a professional but have worked in php for 3-4 years and never thought of saving time/memory before :P so I'm kinda stuck over here...</p>
