Absolutely.
If you mean a thumb turnwheel to adjust a setting, with 30CPR and never more than 40RPM, polling the input would be the best idea. If you want 1000CPR at 600RPM, engaging interrupts and external hardware is essential. If you don't care about a cycle lost now and then, use A=clock, B=direction. If you need x4 resolution count, create hardware which generates an interrupt pulse every transition. If you want just 1 direction, just count edges. If you want to measure direction but have only 1-channel encoders, you can align them to generate a quadrature. If you want ultra precision from low CPR, use analog (sine wave) encoder attached to ADC. If you want even higher, use two, differing by a low number of counts and a differential ADC.

There are countless specifities connected with the problem and the choice of your hardware and software is strictly dependent on requirements.