Talk:Deprecation

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Mention features removed in early versions of Java (3.0?)

It seems to me the article should stick to the topic in general and not attempt to catalog particular instances of Deprecation. Obviously it's useful to provide examples, but the particulars of the examples shouldn't matter beyond their use as exemplars. Deh 02:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Deprecated" does not mean "obsolete"!

Strictly speaking, "deprecated" means "frowned upon" or "discouraged", and it is not a simple synonym for "obsolete". For example, you could say that "goto statements are generally deprecated in modern C++", even though this langauge feature is not being phased out and there are very legitimate cases where it is a good idea to use goto. By contrast, the word "obsolete" simply means that an old thing has been replaced by something newer. Most "obsolete" stuff is indeed deprecated, but there are counterexamples, e.g. if the newer API is broken for some reason. Sun popularized the word "deprecated" in the Java API's, but you will notice that Microsoft chose to use "ObsoleteAttribute" for the .NET Framework, and this is in fact a technically more accurate word for the way people generally use it.

[edit] Leave the word "gradual" out of the definition of "deprecate"

You say: "deprecation is the gradual phasing-out".

The word "gradual" should be left out. In other words: the speed of making obsolete is not part of the meaning of the word.

For example in http://del.icio.us/help/api/ they say "We will version the API, but may deprecate early versions aggressively.".

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-dep1.htm contains the following quote under deprecate: "A deprecated object ... is one which must be supported, but one which will most likely be removed from the next version ..."

[edit] Incomplete thought?

I can't seem to understand the following sentence from the article:

In this instance, deprecated is a better term to describe the condition than obsolete, because, while a term that is obsolete might have some use or value.

It seems like maybe someone started writing a sentence that made sense, but stopped in the middle. — The Storm Surfer 16:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• I've tried to clarify this, if anyone disagrees feel free to change it back, but please check all the changes as I corrected some basic grammatical errors as well. The first and last sentences of the paragraph don't agree now, but I don't have enough knowledge of the use of the term to correct that with confidence. I notice a comment above that deprecate is not a synonym for obsolete, maybe that could be taken into account in further clarifying this paragraph--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 01:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC).