The goal of this refactor is to reduce the amount of boilerplate code that is
necessary to have a dynamic number of sockets on nodes. This is achieved
by making the code more reusable. Currently, only the simulation and repeat
zone nodes make use of this. However, even with just those two, the amount
of code is reduced already. The benefit of this refactor will become even more
significant as more nodes support a dynamic number of sockets. For example,
the bake node and for-each zone will also benefit from this.
We could probably make some of the utility functions non-templates using type
erasure. This could reduce the compilation overhead when the number of nodes
with item arrays increases. The main reason for why everything is templated
now is that it made this refactor easier. Without this patch, all the code was
essentially "manually templated". So the implementations look still similar to
before now, just that concrete types are replaced with template parameters.
No user-visible changes are expected.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/113114
