Should we include reviewing code generating workproducts?

Question

I posted a question that asked for feedback for optimizing a Simulink Model which is used to generate C code. The question was down-voted and put on hold because there was no code provided in the traditional sense. For those who don't know, C code is auto-generated from the Simulink Model and how you build the Model will greatly affect the performance of the C code.

So, is this a case of uneducated community members down-voting what they don't understand? Or is there a better fit in the SE community for these kind of questions?

Answer 1

There is no rule on Code Review that forbids questions in graphical (rather than textual) programming languages. However, your question, as you have framed it, isn't a Code Review question.

Code Review is for open-ended critique of code that accomplishes a task. On the other hand, you're asking an abstract but very specific question about why Simulink generates crappy code from your model, and how you can force it to generate vectorized code. That's what Stack Overflow calls an MCVE.

If you had written a question like…

I have the following MATLAB code. Each vector has 24 elements. How can I rewrite it for better efficiency? Can it be vectorized?

Converted = Convert(SomeVec7);
DotProduct1 = dot(Converted, LngPwr);
DotProduct2 = dot(Converted, ShrtPwr);
DotProduct3 = dot(Converted, SomeVec3);
DotProduct4 = dot(Converted, SomeVec4);
DotProduct5 = dot(Converted, SomeVec5);
DotProduct6 = dot(Converted, SomeVec6);

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matlab performance vectorization

… I would have downvoted (and probably closed) it too, for lack of context about what you are trying to accomplish.

Note that the fact that Simulink is a graphical language is irrelevant. Though you asked about a Simulink-to-C translation, the situation would be the same had you asked about the quality of assembly code generated by compiling C++ code.

You could show us more of your Simulink model and explain what you are trying to accomplish, so that we can review the code. Alternatively, you could ask the question in its current form (Rev 5) on Stack Overflow.

Answer 2

To me it looks like "code" that falls in the same category as scratch and other "graphical code" - I actually find this simulink thing more "serious" than scratch, and the community feedback for Scratch has been rather overwhelmingly positive (two answers with total positive score of +26 in favor of it being on-topic, and zero downvotes and/or counter-argumenting answers):

There's no rule against code that is not in textual format. The only tricky rule to comply with is the requirement to embed the code directly in the question itself. If you use the image Stack Exchange imgur hosting service, I think that should satisfy the requirement.

200_success on on-topicness of Scratch

Given a new simulink tag, I don't see why such matlab questions would be off-topic, at least as long as scratch questions are accepted as on-topic.

Answer 3

It appears that you are asking how to implement functionality to your code when you say

I have a matlab simulink model with a series of DOT Products that could easily be run through a single For Loop but Embedded coder generates a for loop for each DOT Product. Any insight on getting / forcing embedded coder to combine these activities?

you say that you have a model, and that it could be run through a for loop, than it sounds like you are asking us how to do it.

and then when you said

A small example of the code is provided below:

in your question, that raises figurative flags to all of us, that say that this isn't your real code.

We don't review example code and we won't tell you how to write code, only how to write code better.

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if the code you want a review on is in the graphic, then I believe that better description, detail, or wording could have explained this.

Code Reviewers see certain buzz words that tell us it is not actual code and then try to find the actual code, so the process that I went through when I saw the this question was that this was a "how do I write x?" type of question, which is off-topic for code review.

I chose not to vote to close or vote to leave open, because I was not familiar with the languages involved and couldn't tell if the code was, in fact, example code.