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Over the past years(?) there's been a debate about the status of the , , and :

On March 26 2015 the tag was linked as a synonym pointing to .

Since then, no new questions have been created with the , and any attempts to add have been auto-converted to .

The "in limbo" state of the questions are currently:

Note that there are currently > 3000 questions reported because of the synonym, even though there are only 1253 tagged that way.

can no longer "grow", it can only shrink as things are edited.

There have been no issues reported since the synonym was introduced in March.

Has the time come to finally merge in to so that:

  • there are no double-tagged questions with both tags?
  • there is a clean history?

Optimize -> Performance time?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm comming late to the party, and this may be a dumb question, but where does memory optimization (decreasing the amount of memory used) fit in? \$\endgroup\$
    – pacmaninbw Mod
    Commented Jul 11, 2016 at 17:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ @pacmaninbw - for that there's the existing tag memory-optimization ... ;-) \$\endgroup\$
    – rolfl
    Commented Jul 11, 2016 at 17:49

2 Answers 2

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No

Not all questions that are tagged with is about , there have been many other kinds of questions tagged with as well. (optimizing code length, optimizing cyclomatic complexity, all other things that can possibly be included in the way-too-broad "optimization" tag)

Merging these tags would make it appear that they asked about when in fact, they did not.

Exhibit A and Exhibit B

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  • \$\begingroup\$ so What you're saying is that we need to manually clean up the tag for these exhibits and similar questions? \$\endgroup\$
    – Vogel612
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 10:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ What I am saying is that not all the optimization questions are about performance and should therefore not be merged. What to do about it instead is open for discussion. \$\endgroup\$
    – Simon Forsberg Mod
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 11:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ Exhibit A is a question that is currently mis-tagged with optimization, and it should be neither Optimization or Performance. As a result, it is not a good example of any question that would be made worse by the merge. It will be just as broken after. I have removed the optimization tag so that it is an improved question. \$\endgroup\$
    – rolfl
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 12:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ Exhibit B is a question that is all about performance, why do you think it would be worse off after the merge. Note the title: "How can i improve this code for better metrics?" - and the user originially applied the optimization tag. His intentions are clear. \$\endgroup\$
    – rolfl
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 12:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ @rolfl B: I assumed "better metrics" was something like cyclomatic complexity, I did not consider the case that "performance" was "better metrics". \$\endgroup\$
    – Simon Forsberg Mod
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 12:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ @rolfl A: I think that the optimization tag should be ultimately removed, but if it is removed by merging with another tag, it would be worse off after the merge, as it is clearly not about performance, but it may well be about "optimization", as "optimization" can include almost anything. \$\endgroup\$
    – Simon Forsberg Mod
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 12:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm with Simon, there's definitely some crossover but the distinctions can be important, this all encompassing guideline might as well include complexity, and it wouldn't be wrong to say that deals with performance, but a question that whose focus would be clear with the former would become ambiguous with the latter. \$\endgroup\$
    – Legato
    Commented Oct 5, 2015 at 3:38
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Yes

  • Adequate time for discovering problems since the synonym was created has passed.
  • No issues have been reported

Merge the tags, which will clean up the mess.

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