6 ms·

Automating Dead Code Cleanup

111 points by dangoldin 3y ago

faizshah 3y ago
Any details on CodeModService? I’m curious cause I was just reading about Rosie from google. There’s not really much public info on large scale code mod tools.
- _f9cu 3y ago
  Here you go https://github.com/facebookarchive/codemod https://github.com/facebookarchive/codemod
omoikane 3y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35755841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35755841 - Sensenmann: Code Deletion at Scale
readthenotes1 3y ago
100m lines removed! That's a lot of "developer productivity"... This makes me kind of sad, removing dead code was one of the joys of the job.
- lvturner 3y ago
  I once worked for a company who referred to the task as "Savage Optimization" -- really like that phrase. Edit: Savage in this context can be read as "Very Extreme"
yoazmenda 3y ago
In other words, they built a code-aware system that both statically and dynamically which can format all the code at scale, delete code, etc... If there is ever an AI sophisticated enough to write a new feature, I believe this is the way it will "look" at the code and re-write it
_f9cu 3y ago
I'm trying to solve automatic code refactoring for frontend. Theory - Frontend is a giant tree of combination of component's variant of show or hide. With that fact, I' was attempting to create a code base scanner to automatically convert the code into such configurations. This article gave me lot of hopes.
philbo 3y ago
My favourite technique for tackling dead code is something I saw in a lightning talk at Velocity Conf years ago. I've introduced it at three different companies now, it's worked well in all three places and I'm always surprised it isn't more widely known/discussed (afaik). This was the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29UXzfQWOhQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29UXzfQWOhQ
- Tade0 3y ago
  So if I understand this correctly a method suspected to be dead is flagged with a "tombstone" with a date that appears in the logs and removed past a certain age?
  - swah 3y ago
    Seems to be, ie every X months you compare the full list (of unique code for each function I guess) with the log list, and remove the ones that don't appear in the latter...
    - teddyh 3y ago
      Great way to remove code handling leap days.
Uptrenda 3y ago
Love the pic of the black and white dev. Got to have that diversity, baby! Doesn't matter that only 8% of tech employees are black. No, in corpo-magic-fucking-pixie-bullshit-land they make up 50%.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  The silly things that you choose to let trigger you reflect your intolerance and bigotry. One of the many benefits of representing people of different races is that it infuriates and tricks hateful irrational racists like you into revealing themselves for who they really are. Thanks for letting us know! Now we'll be sure to downvote, report, and ignore all your other worthless comments and opinions in the future. I'm sure your persecution complex and victimhood fetish will enjoy the consequences of your own words and actions.
  - Uptrenda 3y ago
    No, I stand by what I said and it isn't racist. Though I can see why you think it is. I don't have a problem with black people in tech. But trying to paint a false image to make something seem different to reality? Yeah, that's fucked up. If we based our idea of the world on corporate branding and libtard double-speak it often shoots us in the foot. For example, these images suggest a perfect harmony of black and white representation in tech. Given that this is the case: why do we need to focus on hiring more under-represented minorities? If the world is already perfect (and yeah - tech people love this) why do anything? It feels just as good to say it is and do nothing.
    - wenebego 3y ago
      If they didnt include a black person, wouldnt that also be false image because not all people in tech are white? Im sure you would be just aa upset in that case, right?
      - DonHopkins 3y ago
        I bet he thinks it's impossible for Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion dithering to represent a picture that is not completely black or white. Floyd–Steinberg dithering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd%E2%80%93Steinberg_dithering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd%E2%80%93Steinberg_dither... Ditherpunk — The article I wish I had about monochrome image dithering: https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/ https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/
DonHopkins 3y ago
Now we just need AI that deletes dead comments.
- tessierashpool 3y ago
  aka comments
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
    I could also use some help killing code that's almost dead, but keeps coming back to life!
JonChesterfield 3y ago
This is a really interesting application of tooling. Especially since it's cross language, though it sounds like they've punted on strings passed to eval. I'm curious what stops tests being considered dead and eligible for deletion. If you just excluded the directory called 'test' or similar you'd miss code that is dead other than uses from test code, which is probably a fair approximation to all "dead" code.
dep_b 3y ago
Interesting stuff. I'm always struggling to find dead code in Xcode projects as there's very little refactoring tooling compared to bigger IDE's like the classic Visual Studio on Windows or JetBrains products. I miss seeing dead code as greyed out. Them mentioning Objective-C gives me some hope.

111 points by dangoldin 3y ago

Any details on CodeModService? I’m curious cause I was just reading about Rosie from google. There’s not really much public info on large scale code mod tools.

_f9cu 3y ago
Here you go https://github.com/facebookarchive/codemod https://github.com/facebookarchive/codemod

omoikane 3y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35755841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35755841 - Sensenmann: Code Deletion at Scale

readthenotes1 3y ago

100m lines removed! That's a lot of "developer productivity"... This makes me kind of sad, removing dead code was one of the joys of the job.

lvturner 3y ago
I once worked for a company who referred to the task as "Savage Optimization" -- really like that phrase. Edit: Savage in this context can be read as "Very Extreme"

yoazmenda 3y ago

In other words, they built a code-aware system that both statically and dynamically which can format all the code at scale, delete code, etc... If there is ever an AI sophisticated enough to write a new feature, I believe this is the way it will "look" at the code and re-write it

_f9cu 3y ago

I'm trying to solve automatic code refactoring for frontend. Theory - Frontend is a giant tree of combination of component's variant of show or hide. With that fact, I' was attempting to create a code base scanner to automatically convert the code into such configurations. This article gave me lot of hopes.

philbo 3y ago

My favourite technique for tackling dead code is something I saw in a lightning talk at Velocity Conf years ago. I've introduced it at three different companies now, it's worked well in all three places and I'm always surprised it isn't more widely known/discussed (afaik). This was the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29UXzfQWOhQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29UXzfQWOhQ

Tade0 3y ago
So if I understand this correctly a method suspected to be dead is flagged with a "tombstone" with a date that appears in the logs and removed past a certain age?
- swah 3y ago
  Seems to be, ie every X months you compare the full list (of unique code for each function I guess) with the log list, and remove the ones that don't appear in the latter...
  - teddyh 3y ago
    Great way to remove code handling leap days.

Uptrenda 3y ago

Love the pic of the black and white dev. Got to have that diversity, baby! Doesn't matter that only 8% of tech employees are black. No, in corpo-magic-fucking-pixie-bullshit-land they make up 50%.

DonHopkins 3y ago
The silly things that you choose to let trigger you reflect your intolerance and bigotry. One of the many benefits of representing people of different races is that it infuriates and tricks hateful irrational racists like you into revealing themselves for who they really are. Thanks for letting us know! Now we'll be sure to downvote, report, and ignore all your other worthless comments and opinions in the future. I'm sure your persecution complex and victimhood fetish will enjoy the consequences of your own words and actions.
- Uptrenda 3y ago
  No, I stand by what I said and it isn't racist. Though I can see why you think it is. I don't have a problem with black people in tech. But trying to paint a false image to make something seem different to reality? Yeah, that's fucked up. If we based our idea of the world on corporate branding and libtard double-speak it often shoots us in the foot. For example, these images suggest a perfect harmony of black and white representation in tech. Given that this is the case: why do we need to focus on hiring more under-represented minorities? If the world is already perfect (and yeah - tech people love this) why do anything? It feels just as good to say it is and do nothing.
  - wenebego 3y ago
    If they didnt include a black person, wouldnt that also be false image because not all people in tech are white? Im sure you would be just aa upset in that case, right?
    - DonHopkins 3y ago
      I bet he thinks it's impossible for Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion dithering to represent a picture that is not completely black or white. Floyd–Steinberg dithering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd%E2%80%93Steinberg_dithering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd%E2%80%93Steinberg_dither... Ditherpunk — The article I wish I had about monochrome image dithering: https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/ https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/

DonHopkins 3y ago

Now we just need AI that deletes dead comments.

tessierashpool 3y ago
aka comments
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  I could also use some help killing code that's almost dead, but keeps coming back to life!

JonChesterfield 3y ago

This is a really interesting application of tooling. Especially since it's cross language, though it sounds like they've punted on strings passed to eval. I'm curious what stops tests being considered dead and eligible for deletion. If you just excluded the directory called 'test' or similar you'd miss code that is dead other than uses from test code, which is probably a fair approximation to all "dead" code.

dep_b 3y ago

Interesting stuff. I'm always struggling to find dead code in Xcode projects as there's very little refactoring tooling compared to bigger IDE's like the classic Visual Studio on Windows or JetBrains products. I miss seeing dead code as greyed out. Them mentioning Objective-C gives me some hope.