Regarding this subject I think:
1. There's impossible to authoritatively classify anything as "dead
code" unless there's a reference standard of what's core and
what's not core (like, Java defines the JFCs). At this point it
would be useful to have a reference standard of "core classes" and
their "core messages/methods".
2. Having a reference model, it would be nice to have a way
preventing modifications of core classes inside official
distribution. Meaning: to be considered part of an official pharo
distribution, code must not alter foundation classes. That
shouldn't be an issue due to huge support for inheritance provided
by smalltalk. So, if need arises to have, let's say, a new
message/method inside something like Array or OrderedCollection or
whathever, it's easy to do that simply creating
MyNewLittleOrderedCollection... It's not hard to verify integrity
of core classes using digital signatures.
3. There should be an official policy for marking code as "obsolete"
or "deprecated".
I guess that once a model of reference classes is established, it's
easier to start profiling things and finding what's alive and what's
dead (not used anymore inside an official distribution). It also
prevents the uncontrolled growth of "core stuff" as consequence of
ad-hoc solutions.
A plus advantage of defining a set of core classes is that it makes easy
to fully document and analyze them. It allows to ensure several things
that are required for any system to be used in the development of
serious commercial software:
1. Profiling (theoretical/measured): known algorithms
2. Security
1. Regarding continuous operation and up time
2. Regarding "civilized" use of resources (memory, IO)
3. Regarding integrity of data
4. Regarding misuse & unforeseen uses of classes/messages/resources
5. Regarding privacy
6. etc...
3. It makes it possible to have serious end user documentation,
clearly specifying functionality, interfaces, cases of use,
limits, error conditions, etc. (side comment: it never went into
my mind de discourse of "documentation is the code" (moreover when
some code is not easily understandable)).
My 2¢
CdAB
