CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vbavariablesms-accessmemory
user2836518
user2836518

Reputation:

How bad is it to have tonnes of unused variables

I am using VBA and I have downloaded a tool called MZ-Tools, it helps me find all the unused variables in all the code, now I have almost 300 objects which roughly 500 lines in each.

Overall it has found almost 500 unused variables/procedures

Would removing these variables speed up the program a lot or would it just be a waste of time to clean up code which doesn't have much effect on the program?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 404

Answers (2)

HansUp
HansUp

Reputation: 97101

Based on your question and comments, my impression is your focus is exclusively on execution speed. If that's all you and the team care about for that project, don't invest any time cleaning up those items because I doubt you will notice any runtime performance improvement.

However, I suggest you look beyond only execution speed. How challenging is this project to debug/troubleshoot for the current maintainer(s)? How difficult to add new features, if needed? How about if someone new has to take over responsibility? How much easier would those tasks be without the distractions of unused variables and procedures?

A related consideration is just how much time are we talking about for that cleanup effort? I wonder whether someone has over-estimated the workload.

Make a copy of the db file. From the Mz-Tools code review panel, choose "export" and save the analysis report as a text file. Print the text file. Then move though that printed list, fix each item, and cross it off the list. If you're really slow, you may only average 2 per minute. And for 500 items, that means 250 minutes. But realistically, the task should take less than 4 hours. Running the Mz-tools code review again will show you if you missed anything. And compiling will tell you whether you removed something by mistake.

Upvotes: 2

El Mac
El Mac

Reputation: 3419

Short answer: It is never a waste of time to clean up code. You or someone else will be so happy when you have to revise it a year later or so.

Longer answer: The application probably wont speed up a lot. At least you probably will not feel a change. This depends on how heavy it already is. Also it depends on the kind of objects that are created, how 'big' and complex they are. If there is some of those objects running methods every couple of seconds for example in a loop, it will affect the performance of the application considerably.

More: As result of cleaning up your application you will get a better performance. If it is perceptible or not, depends on a variety of stuff. The bigger problem is that you will not know if the objects used wont cause errors in the future. Maybe some of them will get discontinued at some time, or they could cause other kind of unexpected exceptions. This is, I think the biggest threat.

Have fun going trough the code sooner or later!

Upvotes: 4

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