eli5 They say that in programming a game, removing some arbitrary asset will inexplicably cause random bugs to pop up. Why?

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Is it that during compilation, the compiler tries to compress and optimize the code in such a way that it “grows roots” into the assets (or vice versa) that if the asset is removed without proper care, the whole thing will collapse into itself? Like, the compiler realized that part of the binary code in one part of the program coincidentally is the same as a snippet of binary code in a nearby asset, so it chops code out to save space?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

NOTHING is random inside a game programming, not even random number generators.

Things like this happen simply because of poor programming or software architecture/compile/build management. Too many components are reused in multiple parts of the system due to cost/performance reasons and their dependencies are not properly tracked or documented. Any one of them could be critical to game compilation/build or proper functioning when running.

In the end it’s just bad engineering, or good engineering prioritizing cost/performance over ease of maintenance.

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