[sldev] [VIEWER] Dead code removal

[Adam Frisby]

Remember -- "a" and "b" can come from the server code which shares a lot 
of code with the viewer. Be careful when submitting patches that removes 
classes like that, since it may still be required for the sim.

Adam

Dirk Moerenhout wrote:

> I've been working on particles and have run into quite a lot of dead
> code. What are we supposed to do with it?
> 
> I consider it dead if:
> a) It's a class, method ... that is never referenced (or only
> referenced by elements that are in turn dead)
> b) A conditional statement that has only one possible result is
> keeping the code from being executed
> c) The code is executed but the result is unused
> d) It's a placeholder returning a default value.
> 
> 
> Personally I'd like to remove all of it. More extensive reasoning for each case:
> a) The logic in unreferenced code hasn't been tested ever since it
> became dead. As such newer changes may have invalidated the code or
> may conflict with it. Yet people will feel inclined to bring it back
> from the dead or may reference it without knowing it's no longer up to
> date.
> 
> b) Same as in case a applies and additionally there are other
> concerns. The condition will most likely still eat CPU cycles and
> you're likely wasting memory on the code and it's data elements as the
> compiler can't always see the condition will never be met.
> 
> c) This is a tricky one. In come cases there's code that seems just
> fine but somewhere else the results are thrown away and replaced. As
> such the code results into nothing and there's no knowing whether the
> result would have had value. This can also eat a lot of CPU cycles if
> the dead part is CPU intensive (there is in fact pointless code in
> loops).
> 
> d) Several functions just return simple values while they are supposed
> to do true calculations. This gives a bit of useless overhead and it
> makes the code ugly and hard to understand. While it does point out
> sometimes that something is missing it does at the same time hide that
> things are missing as not everybody will check whether a method really
> returns somethings useful or not.
> 
> Is it ok to submit a patch for this? I've split my particles stuff in
> pieces and the first part of it now is an extensive dead code removal
> patch (only for particle related dead code off course). It helps speed
> up code as it removes CPU and memory taxing pieces and it also makes
> the code easier to understand and read.
> 
> Dirk aka Blakar Ogre
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