all: when code paths are removed, no longer used or deprecated please use the Go Deprecated notice for more scalable and easier maintenance

[odeke-em]

Summary

There are many times that my team has been tasked with an activity such as an existing performance issue or security audits. Given with how rapidly the cosmos-sdk changes and with still open issues, we need a way to scalably indicate when code is no longer used. The resort is advice to check-in on every issue or feature we work on to see if it is still relevant or not, which isn't great for scalable software development.

Proposal

I propose that if code is no longer used and is intentional deprecated, for example no more use of .GetSignBytes() or certain code paths, that we use Go's standard Deprecated notice style which entails adding the comment:

// Deprecated: <message>

Please see:

• https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Deprecated
• https://go.dev/blog/godoc

And we also need to be proactive about giving notice of changed code and code paths.

/cc @aaronc @elias-orijtech

[tac0turtle]

closing this as its something we follow already