Re: Deprecation of X

On 08/04/11 17:55, Sandro Hawke wrote:
> On Fri, 2011-04-08 at 13:27 +0100, Richard Cyganiak wrote:
>> On 8 Apr 2011, at 12:38, Nathan wrote:
>>> Rather than strictly deprecating certain features, can we
>>> modularize them in to another "extensions" specification, or
>>> working note, perhaps together with steps publishers / consumers
>>> can take to factor them out?
>>>
>>> Else, are we versioning "RDF" such that people can tell, oh this
>>> is RDF 1 which supports x,y,z and this is RDF 1.x which does
>>> not?
>>
>> At the Stanford workshop there was a lot of talk about “weak
>> deprecation”, meaning something like: Conforming implementations
>> MUST still support it, but newly created data SHOULD NOT use it.
>> There is no intention of removing the feature entirely in a future
>> version of the spec.
>>
>> Going much further than that probably is not desirable, nor really
>> possible given the constraints set by the charter.
>
> When I was writing up these issues, I started to use the term
> "weakly deprecate", then I stopped and looked up the word
> "deprecate":
>
> In computer software or authoring programs standards and
> documentation, the term deprecation is applied to software features
> that are superseded and should be avoided. Although deprecated
> features remain in the current version, their use may raise warning
> messages recommending alternative practices, and deprecation may
> indicate that the feature will be removed in the future. Features are
> deprecated—rather than being removed—in order to provide backward
> compatibility and give programmers who have used the feature time to
> bring their code into compliance with the new standard.
>
> -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deprecation

If and when things are deprecated
"features that are superseded"+"recommending alternative practices"
we need to provide better alternatives, not just say "best not to use 
X".  The requirement is still there.

  Andy

>
> Isn't this exactly what we mean?   We could deprecate rdf:Seq but say
> we wont remove it for at least 99 more years.



>
> For some reason, though, everyone seems to think "deprecate" means
> "remove".   So maybe we do have to make up some new word.   I'd
> rather just be clear about them being "deprecated-not-removed".
>
> -- Sandro
>
>
>

Received on Monday, 11 April 2011 21:48:16 UTC