What to do on feature deletion/deactivation

Question

as I am trying to wrap my head around silverlight and sharepoint there's one thing I find most irritating: Provisioned xap-Files and/or web-Parts remain fully active upon deactivation/uninstallation of the feature that originally provided them...

So the question is: What is a good practice: To remove those files (using a featureReceiver) on deactivation or on uninstallation or not to remove them at all?

Answer 1

If a feature is Deactivated, it means its not being used in the particular scope it is defined. Always the best practice would be to revert the actions that are done while activating the feature.

In your case, removing the files with an Event Receiver for Feature deactivation would be the best approach. This would also help in improving the site performance.