tile_request_cache is not used. Should it be removed?

[smellyshovel]

There's this makeFetchRequest function now: https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-gl-js/blob/main/src/util/ajax.ts#L134

On the line 147 cacheIgnoringSearch variable is explicily set to false.

Then on the line 214 there's an if-else block based on the value of this variable. Since the variable is a false constant, the if branch is never executed. Hence the cacheGet method never gets executed as well.

If we revert the if-else statement, then caching seems to work as intended. But, on the other hand, what's the purpose of the variable and the if-else block still?

The other thing is whether there's any point in this tile_request_cache at all. I think that at some point in time Fetch API was implemented, but the out-of-the-box caching support for it has not been implemented yet, and therefore this "manual" caching was implemented on the level of GL JS lib.

I might be mistaken, but I think that tile_request_cache could be removed altogether and instead of relying on it, we should let the browser do its best based on the response HTTP headers.

For reference: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/03/referrer-and-cache-control-apis-for-fetch/

[HarelM]

I tend to agree, this whole ajax file is filled with legacy code which we'll have a hard time reverse engineering.
I would also advise to go back to the history and see when and why this was inserted/changed and maybe better understand why it's there.
Generally speaking, we don't want dead code, and setting a variable to false and never changing it is de-facto creating dead code...