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This is probably one of CR's oldest tags, next to and , both of which have already been removed. I recall similar discussion mentioning that specific optimization tags would be more beneficial, such as for speed and memory. Even if we were to create some of these, we may still end up retagging a lot of questions. On the other hand, maybe it just wouldn't be worth it, as it's just another meta tag, which we're trying to keep to a minimum.

It has a tag wiki which explains its use, but it reveals that it's quite general. It has over 1000 questions, and I'm certain that many more questions would fit well with it. This could suggest that while it may not be applicable to every question, it's still likely being used when the author mentions optimization.

Knowing that every question implies an overall review of the code for improvements, does really add anything even slightly specific? Other tags such as and may not seem too different, but they're also not that general. In other words, it's not as likely that they will just be "thrown in there" when just a general review is requested, which should be minimized.

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I've never liked the tag. I would like to see it burninated and replaced by three tags:

A question that asks for "optimization" in general doesn't have focus, and doesn't need any of those tags at all.

This reorganization would also pave the way for the introduction of an tag, for code that aims to maximize/minimize some function subject to some set of constraints.

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    \$\begingroup\$ If this goes through, ping me. I'll help with the clean up. There's a lot of optimization out there. It'll take a concerted community effort to clean it up. \$\endgroup\$
    – RubberDuck
    Oct 31, 2014 at 10:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm still not quite liking having the additional tags. They are meta, and we would probably end up going through all 1500+ questions, which is a lot. But if we can synonymize with existing tags (such as the speed optimization one), then that's okay with me. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jamal
    Oct 31, 2014 at 17:37
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Jamal, maybe we're thinking of meta tags a bit wrong. I mean, reviewing code is a bit meta in and of itself. Just a thought. \$\endgroup\$
    – RubberDuck
    Oct 31, 2014 at 22:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ The more I think about it, the more I don't like code-size-optimization... that would seem to tend towards minifying code, which is off topic. \$\endgroup\$
    – RubberDuck
    Nov 10, 2014 at 14:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ And I wonder if memory-optimization can be synonymized with memory-management. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jamal
    Nov 10, 2014 at 18:23
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    \$\begingroup\$ @RubberDuck I'm also having second thoughts about code-size-optimization. If it's not unreasonable (i.e. golfing), then it's likely to be superfluous. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 11, 2014 at 20:57
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Jamal yes. I think so. Answer pending, but I'm thinking speed related optimization >> performance, memory optimization >> memory management, burn the rest. \$\endgroup\$
    – RubberDuck
    Nov 11, 2014 at 23:07

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