There's an old adage that goes "It's easier to destroy than create".
i'm not quite sure that applies to software developers.
Torvalds knows i'm just as guilty of it as anyone else, but one of the things that constantly infuriates me is tripping over unused code. Mostly because i have no idea that it's unused before i trip over it. Trying my best to not reinvent any particular wheel, i'll discover something that may be reasonably close to what i want, spend time tweaking it to suit my needs, and then discover that it actually doesn't do anything near what i want because it was abandoned months ago and nobody ever got around to cleaning that part up.
It's even worse on larger projects where folks are constantly rushing to meet deliverable timelines. Truth is, it's easy to add a note like "//Todo: Finish This", and then forget entirely about "this" for months.
i think the problem is that code is amazingly cheap for a developer. It's what we use, kind of like how an electrician can blow through reels of wiring without thinking about it, only unlike an electrician, raw code doesn't have a price tag hanging off of it at Home Depot. Of course, it really does because code takes time to craft, test and deploy, and that's time that could be spent on other projects. It honestly is worth it to clean up bad code, or at least label or just drop things that aren't being used.
Heh. i call it "picking up the toys" since that's kind of what it feels like.
i just need to remember to do that myself before i cry that other folks aren't doing it.
