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Don't leave warnings behind

Khem Raj January 13, 2025 #meta

Existing codebases invariably have some compiler diagnostics, warnings or notes which linger over for ages. These are valuable suggestions when considering technical debt and code hygiene in general. It becomes worse as we add more code, use different compiler-toolchain, port it to new architecture.

These messages are quite valuable, it can hint at doing better on data structure choices prepare for future compiler upgrade, since this warning might turn into error as compiler gets stricter. Sometimes it can point at outright bug. We deploy many expensive tools for code analysis e.g. static checkers etc. but the compilers diagnostic system is a poor man's static checker, if paid attention to, can result in significant value extraction.

On a lesser note, it speeds up compiling speed, since compiler does not have to indulge with system I/O and on large codebases this can be a good time savings.

Tools get better with time, we should plan towards taking advantage of what they offer we do look keenly on optimizations since that can improve the performance of software product likewise we should prioritize addressing diagnostics for paying the technical debt.

Maybe organize special events to attract attention towards it, have teams prioritize it but do not ignore it.